To estimate the annual biomass incorporated into the soil from
leaf fall (peach is deciduous), leaves were collected by placing
nets on the ground underneath five trees per treatment. These
leaves were weighed and a sample was dried to constant weight
and their annual C contributions to the soil determined. Next, the woody material removed by routine annual pruning wasmeasured from 20 trees (×10 a treatment) and the total fresh weight of this was determined. Samples of five diameter-classes of this wood (∼1 kg per sample) were dried and weighed as above to estimate the total C in this material. Lastly, at the time of each mowing operation, an ‘understory clippings’ sample (×3) was randomly taken from a typical 1 m2 area (×3) in the Amng orchard to estimate the amount of C returned to the soil by mowing