Coupling no tillage with bio organic fertilizer strategies to optimize soil quality and microbial communities, without compromising crop yield, in the rainfed conditions of the Loess Plateau, China.

No tillage and bio-organic fertilizer are promising practices for improving the soil health and crop yield on farmland. However, research on the interactions of these practices on soil quality index, microbial community and crop yield remains limited. A field experiment was conducted in 2015 to 2018 by comparing two tillage methods conventional tillage and no-tillage with two fertilization techniques--chemical fertilizer and bio-organic fertilizer. This resulted in four treatments TC, TF, NC, and NF. By selecting soil physicochemical and biological properties as the evaluation indicators of SQI, we analyzed the effects of these treatments on soil SQI, microbial community and crop yield, and their relationship with SQI, and crop yield. Our finding showed that no-tillage combined with bio-organic fertilizer significantly improved soil health and microbial properties.