RESUMO
The primary aims of this study were to (i) quantify the variations in nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions and soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration rates under winter wheat-summer maize cropping systems in Guanzhong Plain and (ii) evaluate the impact of organic amendments on greenhouse gas mitigation over a long-term period. We measured N2O fluxes during the maize season in 2015 under four fertilizer regimes in a long-term fertilization experiment. Soil was treated with only synthetic fertilizers in the maize season and with synthetic fertilizers, synthetic fertilizers plus crop residues and synthetic fertilizers plus low and high levels of dairy manure in the winter wheat season from 1990. The SOC content (0-20cm) was collected annually at the same site between 1990 and 2015. Synthesis of our measurements and previous observations (between 2000 and 2009) within the investigated agricultural landscape revealed that cumulative N2O emissions increased with the SOC content following natural logarithm models during both the maize and winter wheat seasons (r2>0.77, p<0.001), implying a trade-off between N2O emissions and SOC sequestration. The SOC content increased under all fertilizer regimes, and the dynamics were well fitted by the linear and logistic regression models (r2>0.74, p<0.001), indicating that all the fertilizer treatments in this study sequestered SOC. By applying these regression models, we estimated that the two manure-amended treatments accumulated a negative global warming potential (ranging from -1.9 to -12.9tCO2-equivalentha-1) over the past 25years. However, this benefit would most likely be offset by high N2O emissions at saturated SOC levels before 2020. Our estimates suggest that organic amendments may not be efficient for greenhouse gas mitigation in Guanzhong Plain over a long-term period. We recommend efforts to inhibit N2O production via denitrification as being critical to resolving the conflict between SOC sequestration and N2O emissions.
RESUMO
The primary aim of this study was to quantify the effects of long-term organic amendments on soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. Using static chamber-gas chromatograph technique, we measured N2O fluxes from winter wheat-maize rotation system and related environmental factors in the Guanzhong Plain for one year (October 2014 to October 2015). Field experiments were based on the "Chinese National Loess Fertility and Fertilizer Effects Long-term Monitoring Experiment". Four treatments were control (CK, 0 kg·hm-2), NPK (NPK, 353 kg·hm-2), NPK combined with maize straw[NPKS, (353+40) kg·hm-2] and cattle waste[NPKM, (238+115) kg·hm-2]. During the experimental period, N2O fluxes from CK treatment were small[<2.9 g·(hm2·d)-1]; while emissions from fertilized treatments peaked after fertilization[up to 113.4 g·(hm2·d)-1 for NPKS] and irrigation[up to 495.0 g·(hm2·d)-1 for NPKM] during winter wheat and maize seasons, respectively. N2O flux was significantly correlated to soil water-filled pore space for all treatments (r>0.28,P<0.05). Annual N2O emissions were (0.1±0.0), (2.6±0.1), (3.4±0.7) and (2.9±0.3) kg·hm-2 for CK, NPK, NPKS and NPKM, respectively. The fertilized treatments released higher N2O emissions than CK treatment (P<0.05), indicating that fertilization stimulated N2O emissions. However, the differences in N2O emissions were not significant among the fertilized treatments (P=0.06), suggesting that organic amendments did not increase N2O emissions obviously. The direct emission factors were 0.72%, 0.83% and 0.80% for NPK, NPKS and NPKM, respectively, all of which were lower than the IPCC default of 1%. The yield-scaled N2O emission for NPKM was the lowest among the fertilized treatments.
