Table 2. Pore characteristics of the 4–6 mm intact soil samples from the studied practices (n = 9–10 per practice) before and after 120 day incubations.
| Pore characteristic | Practice |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CT | CT-cover | NS | ||||
| Measurements conducted before the incubation | ||||||
| Total porosity, % | 29 (0.9) a | 33 (0.9) b | 36 (0.9) b | |||
| Pores <13 μm, % | 26.6 (0.8) a | 28.0 (0.8) a | 31.9 (0.8) b | |||
| Measurements conducted before and after the incubation | ||||||
| before | after | before | after | before | after | |
| Pores >13 μm, % | 3.0 (0.50) a | 2.9 (0.55) a | 5.3 (0.50) b | 6.0 (0.55) b* | 4.0 (0.50) ab | 4.6 (0.55) ab* |
| Individual pore size classes, relative fractions | ||||||
| 13–32 μm | 0.00035 (0.00003) a | 0.00044 (0.00005) a* | 0.00050 (0.00006) ab | 0.00090 (0.00009) b* | 0.00056 (0.00007) b | 0.00088 (0.00009) b* |
| 32–58 μm | 0.00022 (0.00003) | 0.00025 (0.00004) | 0.00033 (0.00006) | 0.00043 (0.00008)* | 0.00035 (0.00005) | 0.00040 (0.00006)* |
| 58–84 μm | 0.00007 (0.000012) | 0.00008 (0.000015) | 0.00012 (0.000024) | 0.00014 (0.000028)* | 0.00012 (0.000014) | 0.00012 (0.000016) |
| >84 μm | 0.000048 (0.000009) a | 0.000048 (0.000011) a | 0.000126 (0.000026) b | 0.000125 (0.000022) b | 0.000075 (0.000011) a | 0.000073 (0.000010) ab |
Standard errors are shown in parentheses. Letters indicate significant differences between the practices within before and after groups (p < 0.05). Stars in the “after” columns indicate significant differences between before and after incubation data within each practice (p < 0.05). Accurate assessments of intact soil sample mass were possible only prior to the incubation, thus total porosity and presence of pores <13 μm were determined only for the initial state of the samples.