Soil biological properties, soil losses and corn yield in long-term organic and conventional farming systems

•Reduced tillage organic plots had enhanced labile, total and microbial organic matter fractions.•Organically managed reduced tillage plots lost less soil carbon in runoff than plowed treatments.•Increases in organic matter in no-tillage systems were associated with decreases in total sediment losses.•Conventional treatments had more than double the sweet corn yield as organic plots.