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Conservation agriculture can provide a low-cost competitive option to mitigate global warming with reduction or elimination of soil tillage and increase soil organic carbon (SOC). Most studies have evaluated the impact of zero till (ZT) only on surface soil layers (down to 30 cm), and few studies have been performed on the potential for C accumulation in deeper layers (0-100 cm) of tropical and subtropical soils. In order to determine whether the change from conventional tillage (CT) to ZT has induced a net gain in SOC, three long-term experiments (15-26 years) on free-draining Ferralsols in the subtropical region of South Brazil were sampled and the SOC stocks to 30 and 100 cm calculated on an equivalent soil mass basis. In rotations containing intercropped or cover-crop legumes, there were significant accumulations of SOC in ZT soils varying from 5 to 8 Mg ha À1 in comparison with CT management, equivalent to annual soil C accumulation rates of between 0.04 and 0.88 Mg ha À1 . However, the potential for soil C accumulation was considerably increased (varying from 0.48 to 1.53 Mg ha À1 yr À1 ) when considering the soil profile down to 100 cm depth. On average the estimate of soil C accumulation to 100 cm depth was 59% greater than that for soil C accumulated to 30 cm. These findings suggest that increasing sampling depth from 30 cm (as presently recommended by the IPCC) to 100 cm, may increase substantially the estimates of potential CO 2 mitigation induced by the change from CT to ZT on the free-draining Ferralsols of the tropics and subtropics. It was evident that that legumes which contributed a net input of biologically fixed N played an important role in promoting soil C accumulation in these soils under ZT, perhaps due to a slow-release of N from decaying surface residues/roots which favored maize root growth.

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Fluorescence spectroscopy relies on the fluorescence emitted by rigid conjugated systems and thus can be used to assess the soil organic matter (SOM) humification. This technique is generally applied to solution samples of humic substances, and so far no information exists about its applicability to whole untreated soil samples. The laser‐induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy is proposed as a novel technique to assess the organic matter humification in whole soil samples. We sampled the 0‐ to 2.5‐, 2.5‐ to 5‐, 5‐ to 10‐, 10‐ to 15‐, and 15‐ to 20‐cm layers of three Oxisols of long‐term experiments located in two sites of the Brazilian Cerrado. The humification index based on LIF spectroscopy (HLIF) of whole soil samples showed a close correlation with the humification indexes A4/A1, I465/I399, and A465 obtained after fluorescence spectroscopy analysis of the dissolved humic acids. The HLIF in soils under native cerrado or subjected to no‐tillage increased from the top to the deepest layer, which is consistent with the deposition of labile organic matter from plant residues on the soil surface. The soils subjected to conventional tillage, however, showed relatively constant HLIF along the profile, possibly because homogenization imparted by disturbance of the arable layer. Accordingly, for the two top layers, the soils under no‐tillage showed a lower HLIF than for conventionally tilled soils. Laser‐induced fluorescence spectroscopy is a promising technique to assess humification in whole soil samples, particularly in Oxisols, which due to high concentration of Fe3+ are not feasible to electron spin resonance (ESR) and Carbon‐13 nuclear magnetic resonance (13C NMR) spectroscopy, unless previous treatment is employed.