Conservation tillage and residue management are the options for enhancing soil organic carbon
stabilization by improving soil aggregation in tropical soils. We studied the influence of different
combinations of tillage and residue management on carbon stabilization in different sized soil
aggregates and also on crop yield after 5 years of continuous rice–wheat cropping system on a sandy
loam reclaimed sodic soil of north India. Compared to conventional tillage, water stable macroaggregates
in conservation tillage (reduced and zero-tillage) in wheat coupled with direct seeded rice (DSR) was
increased by 50.13% and water stable microaggregates of the later decreased by 10.1% in surface soil.
Residue incorporation caused a significant increment of 15.65% in total water stable aggregates in
surface soil (0–15 cm) and 7.53% in sub-surface soil (15–30 cm). In surface soil, the maximum (19.2%)
and minimum (8.9%) proportion of total aggregated carbon was retained with >2 mm and 0.1–0.05 mm
size fractions, respectively. DSR combined with zero tillage in wheat along with residue retention (T6)
had the highest capability to hold the organic carbon in surface (11.57 g kg1 soil aggregates) with the
highest stratification ratio of SOC (1.5). Moreover, it could show the highest carbon preservation capacity
(CPC) of coarse macro and mesoaggregates. A considerable proportion of the total SOC was found to be
captured by the macroaggregates (>2–0.25 mm) under both surface (67.1%) and sub-surface layers
(66.7%) leaving rest amount in microaggregates and ‘silt + clay’ sized particles. From our study, it has
been proved that DSR with zero tillage in wheat (with residue) treatment (T6) has the highest potential to
secure sustainable yield increment (8.3%) and good soil health by improving soil aggregation (53.8%) and
SOC sequestration (33.6%) with respect to the conventional tillage with transplanted rice (T1) after five
years of continuous rice–wheat cropping in sandy loam reclaimed sodic soil of hot semi-arid Indian subcontinent.