• Authors:
    • Ostonen, I.
    • Soosaar, K.
    • Maddison, M.
    • Laht, J.
    • Jaerveoja, J.i
    • Mander, U.
  • Source: Regional Environmental Change
  • Volume: 13
  • Issue: 4
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: Abandoned peat extraction areas are continuous emitters of GHGs; hence, abandonment of peat extraction areas should immediately be followed by conversion to an appropriate after-use. Our primary aim was to clarify the atmospheric impact of reed canary grass (RCG, Phalaris arundinacea L.) cultivation on an abandoned peat extraction area and to compare it to other after-treatment alternatives. We performed a life-cycle assessment for five different after-use options for a drained organic soil withdrawn from peat extraction: (I) bare peat soil (no management), (II) non-fertilised Phalaris cultivation, (III) fertilised Phalaris cultivation, (IV) afforestation, and (V) rewetting. Our results showed that on average the non-fertilised and fertilised Phalaris alternatives had a cooling effect on the atmosphere (-10,837 and -477 kg CO2-eq ha(-1) year(-1), respectively), whereas afforestation, rewetting, and no-management alternatives contributed to global warming (9,511, 8,195, and 2,529 kg CO2-eq ha(-1) year(-1), respectively). The main components influencing the global warming potential of different after-use alternatives were site GHG emissions, carbon assimilation by plants, and emissions from combustion, while management-related emissions played a relatively minor role. The results of this study indicate that, from the perspective of atmospheric impact, the most suitable after-use option for an abandoned peat extraction area is cultivation of RCG.
  • Authors:
    • Hauggard-Nielsen, H.
    • Jensen, E. S.
    • Carter, M. S.
    • Johansen, A.
    • Ambus, P.
  • Source: Applied Soil Ecology
  • Volume: 63
  • Issue: January
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: Anaerobic digestion of animal manure and crop residues may be employed to produce biogas as a climate-neutral source of energy and to recycle plant nutrients as fertilizers. However, especially organic farmers are concerned that fertilizing with the digestates may impact the soil microbiota and fertility because they contain more mineral nitrogen (N) and less organic carbon (C) than the non-digested input materials (e.g. raw animal slurry or fresh plant residues). Hence, an incubation study was performed where (1) water, (2) raw cattle slurry, (3) anaerobically digested cattle slurry/maize, (4) anaerobically digested cattle slurry/grass-clover, or (5) fresh grass-clover was applied to soil at arable realistic rates. Experimental unites were sequentially sampled destructively after 1, 3 and 9 days of incubation and the soil assayed for content of mineral N, available organic C, emission of CO2 and N2O, microbial phospholipid fatty acids (biomass and community composition) and catabolic response profiling (fiinctional diversity). Fertilizing with the anaerobically digested materials increased the soil concentration of NO3- ca. 30-40% compared to when raw cattle slurry was applied. Grass-clover contributed with four times more readily degradable organic C than the other materials, causing an increased microbial biomass which depleted the soil for mineral N and probably also O-2. Consequently, grass-clover also caused a 10 times increase in emissions of CO2 and N2O greenhouse gasses compared to any of the other treatments during the 9 days. Regarding microbial community composition, grass-clover induced the largest changes in microbial diversity measures compared to the controls, where raw cattle slurry and the two anaerobically digested materials (cattle slurry/maize, cattle slurry/grass-clover) only induced minor and transient changes. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
  • Authors:
    • Katterer, T.
    • Arvidsson, J.
    • Kainiemi, V.
  • Source: Biology and Fertility of Soils
  • Volume: 49
  • Issue: 5
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: Reduced tillage is proposed as a method of C sequestration in agricultural soils. However, tillage effects on organic matter turnover are often contradictory and data are lacking on how tillage practices affect soil respiration in northern Europe. This field study (1) quantified the short-term effects of different tillage methods and timing on soil respiration and N mineralisation and (2) examined changes in aggregate size distribution due to different tillage operations and how these relate to soil respiration. The study was conducted on Swedish clay soil (Eutric Cambisol) and compared no-tillage with three forms of tillage applied in early or late autumn 2010: mouldboard ploughing to 20-22 cm and chisel ploughing to 12 or 5 cm depth. Soil respiration, soil temperature, gravimetric water content, mineral N and aggregate size distribution were measured. The results showed that respiration was significantly higher (P < 0.001) in no-till than in tilled plots during the 2 weeks following tillage in early September. Later tillage gave a similar trend but treatments did not differ significantly. Soil tillage and temperature explained 56 % of the variation in respiration. In the early tillage treatment, soil respiration decreased with tillage depth. Mineral N status was not affected by tillage treatment or timing. Soil water content did not differ significantly between tillage practices and therefore did not explain differences in respiration. The results indicate that conventional tillage in early autumn may reduce short-term soil respiration compared with chisel ploughing and no-till in clay soils in northern Europe.
  • Authors:
    • Laerke, P. E.
    • Elsgaard, L.
    • Kandel, T. P.
  • Source: GCB Bioenergy
  • Volume: 5
  • Issue: 5
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: Cultivation of bioenergy crops has been suggested as a promising option for reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from arable organic soils (Histosols). Here, we report the annual net ecosystem exchange (NEE) fluxes of CO2 as measured with a dynamic closed chamber method at a drained fen peatland grown with reed canary grass (RCG) and spring barley (SB) in a plot experiment (n=3 for each cropping system). The CO2 flux was partitioned into gross photosynthesis (GP) and ecosystem respiration (R-E). For the data analysis, simple yet useful GP and R-E models were developed which introduce plot-scale ratio vegetation index as an active vegetation proxy. The GP model captures the effect of temperature and vegetation status, and the R-E model estimates the proportion of foliar biomass dependent respiration (R-fb) in the total R-E. Annual R-E was 1887 +/- 7 (mean +/- standard error, n=3) and 1288 +/- 19g CO2-Cm-2 in RCG and SB plots, respectively, with R-fb accounting for 32 and 22% respectively. Total estimated annual GP was -1818 +/- 42 and -1329 +/- 66g CO2-Cm-2 in RCG and SB plots leading to a NEE of 69 +/- 36g CO2-C m(-2)yr(-1) in RCG plots (i.e., a weak net source) and -41 +/- 47g CO2-C m(-2)yr(-1) in SB plots (i.e., a weak net sink). Standard errors related to spatial variation were small (as shown above), but more significant uncertainties were related to the modelling approach for establishment of annual budgets. In conclusion, the bioenergy cropping system was not more favourable than the food cropping system when looking at the atmospheric CO2 emissions during cultivation. However, in a broader GHG life-cycle perspective, the lower fertilizer N input and the higher biomass yield in bioenergy cropping systems could be beneficial.
  • Authors:
    • Giltrap, D.
    • Hernandez-Ramirez, G.
    • Kim, D.-G.
  • Source: Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
  • Volume: 168
  • Issue: March
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: Rising atmospheric concentrations of nitrous oxide (N2O) contribute to global warming and associated climate change. It is often assumed that there is a linear relationship between nitrogen (N) input and direct N2O emission in managed ecosystems and, therefore, direct N2O emission for national greenhouse gas inventories use constant emission factors (EF). However, a growing body of studies shows that increases in direct N2O emission are related by a nonlinear relationship to increasing N input. We examined the dependency of direct N2O emission on N input using 26 published datasets where at least four different levels of N input had been applied. In 18 of these datasets the relationship of direct N2O emission to N input was nonlinear (exponential or hyperbolic) while the relationship was linear in four datasets. We also found that direct N2O EF remains constant or increases or decreases nonlinearly with changing N input. Studies show that direct N2O emissions increase abruptly at N input rates above plant uptake capacity. The remaining surplus N could serve as source of additional N2O production, and also indirectly promote N2O production by inhibiting biochemical N2O reduction. Accordingly, we propose a hypothetical relationship to conceptually describe in three steps the response of direct N2O emissions to increasing N input rates: (1) linear (N limited soil condition), (2) exponential, and (3) steady-state (carbon (C) limited soil condition). In this study, due to the limited availability of data, it was not possible to assess these hypothetical explanations fully. We recommend further comprehensive experimental examination and simulation using process-based models be conducted to address the issues reported in this review. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
  • Authors:
    • Wander, M. M.
    • Dunn, J. B.
    • Mueller, S.
    • Kwon, H.-Y.
  • Source: Biomass and Bioenergy
  • Volume: 55
  • Issue: August
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: Current estimates of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels produced in the US can be improved by refining soil C emission factors (EF; C emissions per land area per year) for direct land use change associated with different biofuel feedstock scenarios. We developed a modeling framework to estimate these EFs at the state-level by utilizing remote sensing data, national statistics databases, and a surrogate model for CENTURY's soil organic C dynamics submodel (SCSOC). We estimated the forward change in soil C concentration within the 0-30 cm depth and computed the associated EFs for the 2011 to 2040 period for croplands, grasslands or pasture/hay, croplands/conservation reserve, and forests that were suited to produce any of four possible biofuel feedstock systems [corn (Zea Mays L)-corn, corn-corn with stover harvest, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L), and miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganteus Greef et Deuter)]. Our results predict smaller losses or even modest gains in sequestration for corn based systems, particularly on existing croplands, than previous efforts and support assertions that production of perennial grasses will lead to negative emissions in most situations and that conversion of forest or established grasslands to biofuel production would likely produce net emissions. The proposed framework and use of the SCSOC provide transparency and relative simplicity that permit users to easily modify model inputs to inform biofuel feedstock production targets set forth by policy. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
  • Authors:
    • Mihailovic, D. T.
    • Eitzinger, J.
    • Lalic, B.
    • Thaler, S.
    • Jancic, M.
  • Source: The Journal of Agricultural Science
  • Volume: 151
  • Issue: 6
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: One of the main problems in estimating the effects of climate change on crops is the identification of those factors limiting crop growth in a selected environment. Previous studies have indicated that considering simple trends of either precipitation or temperature for the coming decades is insufficient for estimating the climate impact on yield in the future. One reason for this insufficiency is that changes in weather extremes or seasonal weather patterns may have marked impacts. The present study focuses on identifying agroclimatic parameters that can identify the effects of climate change and variability on winter wheat yield change in the Pannonian lowland. The impacts of soil type under past and future climates as well as the effect of different CO2 concentrations on yield formation are also considered. The Vojvodina region was chosen for this case study because it is a representative part of the Pannonian lowland. Projections of the future climate were taken from the HadCM3, ECHAM5 and NCAR-PCM climate models with the SRES-A2 scenario for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the 2040 and 2080 integration periods. To calibrate and validate the Met&Roll weather generator, four-variable weather data series (for six main climatic stations in the Vojvodina region) were analysed. The grain yield of winter wheat was calculated using the SIRIUS wheat model for three different CO2 concentrations (330, 550 and 1050 ppm) dependent on the integration period. To estimate the effects of climatic parameters on crop yield, the correlation coefficient between crop yield and agroclimatic indices was calculated using the AGRICLIM software. The present study shows that for all soil types, the following indices are the most important for winter wheat yields in this region: (i) the number of days with water and temperature stress, (ii) the accumulated precipitation, (iii) the actual evapotranspiration (ETa) and (iv) the water deficit during the growing season. The high positive correlations between yield and the ETa, accumulated precipitation and the ratio between the ETa and reference evapotranspiration (ETr) for the April-June period indicate that water is and will remain a major limiting factor for growing winter wheat in this region. Indices referring to negative impact on yield are (i) the number of days with a water deficit for the April-June period and (ii) the number of days with maximum temperature above 25 degrees C (summer days) and the number of days with maximum temperature above 30 degrees C (tropical days) in May and June. These indices can be seen as indicators of extreme weather events such as drought and heat waves.
  • Authors:
    • Osborne, S. L.
    • Lehman, R. M.
  • Source: Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
  • Volume: 170
  • Issue: April
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: We determined soil surface fluxes of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane) from no-till, dryland corn (Zea mays L.) in eastern South Dakota and tested the effect of rotation on greenhouse gas fluxes from corn. The corn was grown within a randomized, complete block study that included both a 2-year (corn-soybean) rotation and a 4-year (corn-field peas-winter wheat-soybean) rotation with plots containing the corn phase present in every year, 2007-2010. Annual carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes were between 1500 and 4000 kg CO2-C ha(-1) during the four-year study. Annual nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes ranged from 0.8 to 1.5 kg N2O-N ha(-1) with peak fluxes during spring thaw and following fertilization. Net methane (CH4) fluxes in 2007 were close to zero, while fluxes for 2008-2010 were between 0.9 and 1.6 kg CH4-C ha(-1). Methane fluxes increased with consistently escalating values of soil moisture over the four-year period demonstrating that soils which previously exhibited neutral or negative CH4 flux may become net CH4 producers in response to multiyear climatic trends. No significant differences in gas fluxes from corn due to treatment (2-year vs. 4-year rotation) were observed. Mean net annual soil surface gas fluxes from corn calculated over four years for both treatments were 2.4 Mg CO2-C ha(-1), 1.2 kg N2O-N ha(-1), and 0.9 kg CH4-C ha(-1). Annual global warming potentials (GWP) as CO2 equivalents were 572 kg ha(-1) and 30 kg ha(-1) for N2O and CH4, respectively. Measurements of soil carbon showed that the 4-yr rotation accrued 596 kg C ha(-1) yr(-1) in the top 30 cm of soil which would be more than sufficient (2.19 Mg CO2 eq ha(-1) yr(-1)) to offset the annual GWP of the nitrous and methane emissions from corn. In contrast, the 2-year rotation lost 120 kg C ha(-1) yr(-1) from the top 30 cm of soil resulting in corn being a net producer of greenhouse gases and associated GWP. Published by Elsevier B.V.
  • Authors:
    • Tzilivakis, J.
    • Warner, D. J.
    • Green, A.
    • Lewis, K. A.
  • Source: International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue: 2
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: The agricultural sector contributes 9% towards total UK greenhouse gas emissions and so may offer significant potential as a sector to help meet national and international emission reduction targets. In order to help farmers manage their emissions and to encourage more sustainable farming, several carbon accounting tools are now available. This article describes a short study that selected five suitable tools and compared their performance on nine European arable farms, concentrating on the crop production components, to determine how useful they are for assisting in the development of site-specific mitigation strategies and how well they would perform within farm assurance or benchmarking schemes. The results were mixed, with some tools better designed for identifying mitigation opportunities than others. The results also showed that, quantitatively, the results are highly variable between tools and depended on the selected functional unit, this being highly important if the wider aspects of sustainability such as food security are to be considered. However, there is statistical consistency across the tools regarding the ranking order of the farms in terms of their emissions.
  • Authors:
    • Jiang, M.
    • Lu, X.-G.
    • Zhang, Y.
    • Dong, G.-H.
    • Liu, X.-H.
  • Source: CLEAN – Soil, Air, Water
  • Volume: 41
  • Issue: 4
  • Year: 2013
  • Summary: Based on the estimation of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and carbon sequestration of the total conversion of marshlands (TMC), marshlands conversion to paddy fields (MCPFs) and marshlands conversion to uplands (MCULs), this study revealed the contribution to the global warming mitigation (CGWM) of paddy fields versus uplands converted from marshlands in the Sanjiang Plain (excluding the Muling-Xingkai Plain on south of Wanda Mountain), Heilongjiang Province, northeast China. The results showed that the total area of MCPFs and MCULs was 504.23x103ha between 1982 and 2005. The CGWM per unit area was 45.53t CO2eq/ha for MCPFs and that was 23.95t CO2eq/ha for MCULs, with an obvious 47.40% reduction. The MCPFs and MCULs ecosystems acted as the carbon sink all of the year. As far as CGWM per unit area is concerned, MCPFs mitigated the greenhouse effect which was greater than MCULs. And it was effective that the implementation of the uplands transformed into paddy fields in Northeast China with regard to marshlands protection and croplands (including paddy fields and uplands) reclamation.