Yeah the headline is not great. Organic fertilizers are literally fertilizers with Carbon in them. So ... yeah more carbon in the soil.
The meat of the article tells a little more. First, the test was on a plot that had been no-till for 22 years. That's important to me because it means the organic fertilizer wasn't tilled into the soil, but instead rested on the surface.
Second is how the carbon was stored. It was a combination of carbon being "preserved in pores" (I don't understand whose pores they're talking about), and that the carbon attached itself to minerals in the soil.
Third, these soils contained more microbial carbon. In other words the manure actually helped support biological processes in the soil. I think that was also something that farmers and producers "knew" because they know their land, but that soil scientists needed to prove.
The Synchrotron is interesting. My partner spends a lot of time digging up soil samples and, sifting them, etc. It's a time and labor intensive process.
