Soil nutrients increase long-term soil carbon gains threefold on retired farmland.
Glob Chang Biol
; 27(19): 4909-4920, 2021 10.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34311496
ABSTRACT
Abandoned agricultural lands often accumulate soil carbon (C) following depletion of soil C by cultivation. The potential for this recovery to provide significant C storage benefits depends on the rate of soil C accumulation, which, in turn, may depend on nutrient supply rates. We tracked soil C for almost four decades following intensive agricultural soil disturbance along an experimentally imposed gradient in nitrogen (N) added annually in combination with other macro- and micro-nutrients. Soil %C accumulated over the course of the study in unfertilized control plots leading to a gain of 6.1 Mg C ha-1 in the top 20 cm of soil. Nutrient addition increased soil %C accumulation leading to a gain of 17.8 Mg C ha-1 in fertilized plots, nearly a threefold increase over the control plots. These results demonstrate that substantial increases in soil C in successional grasslands following agricultural abandonment occur over decadal timescales, and that C gain is increased by high supply rates of soil nutrients. In addition, soil %C continued to increase for decades under elevated nutrient supply, suggesting that short-term nutrient addition experiments underestimate the effects of soil nutrients on soil C accumulation.
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Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Suelo
/
Carbono
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Glob Chang Biol
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos