The combination of continuous cereal cropping, tillage and stubble removal reduces soil fertility and increases soil erosion on sloping land. The objective of the present study was to assessment soil fertility changes under stubble removal and stubble retention in the Loess Plateau where soil is prone to severe erosion. It was indicated that soil N increased a lot for and two stubble retention treatments had the higher N balance at the end of two rotations. Soil K balance performed that soil K was in deficient for all treatments and two stubble retention treatments had lower deficit K. The treatments with stubble retention produced higher grain yields than the stubble removal treatments. It was concluded that stubble retention should be conducted to increase crops productivity, improve soil fertility as well as agriculture sustainability in the Loess plateau, China. 1. Introduction Crop stubble is a main agricultural waste material as well as a renewable resource, due to being rich in nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). China has a long tradition of efficient recycling of organic residues in agriculture, but this tradition is rapidly disappearing following the intensification of agricultural production, the increased use of mineral fertilizers, and the increasing urbanization and decoupling of crop production and animal production [1]. The intensification of agricultural production has greatly increased the agricultural production, but at the same time, it has contributed to a decrease in resource use efficiency, land degradation through increased wind and water erosion, and pollution of ground water and surface waters [2–4]. There are approximately 0.7 billion ton of organic residues produced each year in China, which contain 3, 0.70, and 7 million ton of N, P, and K, respectively, equivalent to 25% of the total chemical fertilizers used for farming system [5]. In the last few decades, there has been increased interest in the reuse of crop stubble for soil ecology [6, 7], crop system [8, 9], and atmospheric environment [10] worldwide. Retention of plant residues has been found to have many long-term benefits around the world. These crop stubble constitutes a mulch cover that protects the soil against run-off and erosion [11] and increases the percentage of organic matter in the surface soil layer [12, 13]. Nutrient loss due to runoff is also decreased [14]. The capacity of the soil surface to intercept rainfall is improved because of changes in soil roughness, soil surface porosity, and hydraulic conductivity of the topsoil. Mulching also
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