Biomass estimation approach impacts on calculated soil organic carbon maintenance requirements and associated mineralization rate constants.

To reduce atmospheric CO(2) concentrations and provide food for a growing world population, sustainable management practices must be adopted. An important consideration in the development of sustainable practices is the maintenance of soil organic carbon (SOC). Critical assumptions, with unknown errors, are used to calculate SOC maintenance requirements. This study investigated the impact of three approaches for estimating belowground nonharvested carbon (NHC) on SOC maintenance requirements, SOC and nonharvested C mineralization rate constants, and the capacity of the soil to sequester carbon. Common protocols were used to develop databases from eight historical carbon studies. The SOC to CO(2) (k(SOC)) and NHC to SOC (k(NHC)) rate constants were calculated using the model NHC(a)/SOC(i) = k(SOC)/k(NHC) + dSOC/dt(1/k(NHC)SOC(i)), where NHC(a) is the amount of applied NHC, SOC(e) is SOC at the equilibrium point, t = time, and SOC(i) is the initial SOC value. Analysis showed that (i) despite the difficulty in measuring belowground biomass, it is needed to calculate the SOC and NHC mineralization rate constants when using nonisotopic approaches; (ii) decreasing NHC by reducing the relative contribution of roots to NHC reduced the calculated SOC maintenance requirements and the amount of corn stover that could be sustainably harvested; iii) changes in the belowground NHC calculation approach do not result in a consistent impact on calculated rate constants; iv) changes in the belowground NHC calculation approach had a minimal impact on the calculated carbon sequestration potential (k(NHC)NHC)/k(SOC); (v) SOC at the beginning of the experiments was negatively correlated with temperature, while k(SOC) was positively correlated with tillage intensity; and (vi) the k(SOC) and k(NHC) rate constants can be used to directly assess the impact of different management scenarios on carbon turnover.

Cultivar preferences of ovipositing wheat stem sawflies as influenced by the amount of volatile attractant.

The wheat stem sawfly, Cephus cinctus Norton, causes severe losses in wheat grown in the northern Great Plains. Much of the affected area is planted in monoculture with wheat, Triticum aestivum L., grown in large fields alternating yearly between crop and no-till fallow. The crop and fallow fields are adjacent. This cropping landscape creates pronounced edge effects of sawfly infestations and may be amenable to trap cropping using existing agricultural practices. The behavioral preference for two wheat varieties was assessed in the context of developing trap crops for this insect. In field nurseries, stem lodging assessments indicated that the cultivar 'Conan' was infrequently damaged, whereas 'Reeder' was often heavily damaged. In laboratory choice and no-choice tests, 'Reeder' was significantly preferred by ovipositing wheat stem sawfly females. These two cultivars did not differ significantly in height or developmental stage, factors known to impact sawfly preference. Although Conan received fewer eggs than Reeder in no-choice tests, oviposition was further reduced in choice tests, indicating that females clearly preferred Reeder. In field trials where the overall dimensions of the spatial structure in choice tests was varied, females always selected Reeder over Conan in alternating block, row, and interseeded planting scenarios. Reeder releases greater amounts of the attractive compound, (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate than Conan but is similar to Conan for three other known, behaviorally active volatile compounds. The results are discussed in terms of cultivar selection for large scale trap crop experiments for the wheat stem sawfly.