Soil aggregate is the basic unit of soil structure, and its stability is closely related to soil erosion-resistance. Soil and water loss makes the soil degradation severer in the specific rocky desertification area. Ridge plant, one of the special agroforestry pattern, plays important roles in improving soil quality and ecological restoration of slope land in rocky desertification area. Qianjiang is a typical rocky desertification area in Chongqing, where mulberrywas widely planted and becomes one of the main economic forest and ridge plants. In order to explore the stability mechanism of soil aggregate, mulberry ridges with three different management modes were selected in this study. The distribution and stability of soil aggregates were measured by traditional Cаввинов method and Le Bissonnais method. The results showed that the stability of soil aggregates based on Cаввинов methods was the best in natural forest land, followed by natural grassland and weeded land, and was the worst in farmland. The aggregate stability index (ASI) followed the order of ASI_90cm > ASI_60cm > ASI_30cm in the three management models. The R_0.25 water stable aggregate increased with increasing distances from ridge, while the aggregate destruction rate (PAD) decreased. The possible reason might be as follows: The effects of mulberry ridge on soil aggregates mainly cover areas within 30 cm, while the agricultural cultivation greatly influenced soil aggregates structure in areas beyond 30 cm with little effect from the ridge. Based on Le Bissonnais methods, the majority of aggregates were broken down to small aggregates by fast wetting (FW) treatment. The distribution of soil aggregates was in the category of 0.5-0.25 mm with diameter after FW, and 5-1 mm after SW and WS. The fractal dimensions (D) of aggregates was the highest (2.53) after FW and the lowest after WS (2.33). The changes of soil aggregates stability with Le Bissonnais and Cаввинов method were similar. The fractal dimensions (D), mean weight diameter (MWD) and geometrical mean diameter (GMD) presented the trend of FW < SW < WS, which indicates that the collapse mechanism of soil aggregates was the air pressure dissipation after fast wetting, followed by clay expansion, and the mechanical vibration in rocky desertification area. MWD with Le Bissonnais method was positively correlated with ASI, R_0.25, MWD and GMD from Cаввинов method and negatively correlated with PAD and D_wet-dry values. The results indicated that Le Bissonnais method was feasible in measuring soil aggregates stability in rocky desertification area. The soil aggregates stability was positively correlated with the contents of clay and soil organic matter in rocky desertification area (0.586 ≤ R ≤ 0.864), indicating that the soil aggregates stability might be formed by cohesive forces of the soil cementing matters. The cementing matters had strong resistance to the collapse process of soil aggregates caused by soil dissipation and clay expansion, while had no obvious resistance to the collapse process caused by mechanical vibration. Therefore, in ecological restoration and agricultural activities, plant species should be chosen according to the criteria of improving soil organic carbon, soil texture and increasing clay content in short period in rocky desertification area. The results had important roles in conserving cultivated soils in rocky desertification area.