Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils via cultivation of cover crops – A meta-analysis

Poeplau, Christopher; Don, Axel

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2014.10.024

Cited by 1,118 publications

(807 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Abdollahi and Munkholm, 2014;Mazzoncini et al, 2011;Mitchell et al, 2017;Sainju et al, 2002;Sapkota et al, 2012). The average annual soil organic C stock change observed in our simulations (from 0.02 to 0.28 t/ha) was similar to what has been reported by Poeplau and Don (2015) based on an extensive meta-analysis of cover crop field experiments. They found an annual change rate of soil organic C stock of 0.32 t/ha for 22 cm depth, in 54 years.…”

Section: Consequences For Soil Fertilitysupporting

confidence: 72%

“…However, their study did not reveal any significant influence of soil tillage on these values, in contrast to what has been shown here. The potential for total soil organic C stock increase thanks to cover crop cultivation is thus substantial, and could play an important role in C sequestration and non-permanent greenhouse gas emission mitigation (Kaye and Quemada, 2017;Poeplau and Don, 2015). In addition, here the simulations showed that after 50 years, SOC did not reach an equilibrium and was still steadily increasing.…”

Section: Consequences For Soil Fertilitymentioning

confidence: 70%

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Importance of cover crops in alleviating negative effects of reduced soil tillage and promoting soil fertility in a winter wheat cropping system

Büchi

Wendling

Amossé

et al. 2018

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

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A B S T R A C TReduction of soil tillage is of paramount importance for agricultural soil preservation. However, it is often accompanied by yield reduction and weed management problems. In this perspective, cover crops could play an important role to alleviate weed infestation and sustain yield. In this study, the results from a three-year experiment of cover crop cultivation in different soil tillage treatments is presented, together with results from DayCent simulations on the long term evolution of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen. Eight cover crop treatments were set up as subtreatments in a long term experiment in Switzerland. Cover crops were cultivated for a short two-month period between two winter wheats. Substantial differences in cover crop growth were observed depending on cover crop species. In all tillage treatments, high cover crop biomass production allowed to supress weed biomass compared to the no cover crop control. Wheat grain yield was higher in the minimum tillage than in the plough treatment. In the no till treatment, wheat yield was notably low, except in the field pea treatments, where wheat yield reached values similar to that observed in the plough and minimum tillage treatments. In addition, these differences in biomass production translated into important differences in nutrient inputs, and even in soil nutrient concentration in some cases. Long term simulations showed that cover crop cultivation could increase drastically soil organic carbon and total nitrogen, especially in reduced tillage treatments. Altogether, these results demonstrated that the presence of a well-developed cover crop, even for only two months, allows to sustain wheat yield in a no till treatment. It impacts also soil fertility and nutrient cycling. This study shows that an accurate use and management of cover crops, in interaction with tillage reduction, could maintain yield and improve soil fertility in the long term.

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Section: Consequences For Soil Fertilitysupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Consequences For Soil Fertilitymentioning

confidence: 70%

Importance of cover crops in alleviating negative effects of reduced soil tillage and promoting soil fertility in a winter wheat cropping system

Büchi

Wendling

Amossé

et al. 2018

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

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“…The C in litter may be slow to move into the mineral soil in the early stages following abandonment [15]. A steady state following the conversion from cropland to grassland may be reached after more than 150 years [22]. Although our results show that abandonment did not increase the C and N pools (Table 1), the ecosystem will not reach a steady state quickly.…”

Section: Plant-derived C and N In Forest Floor Litter And Abandoned Pcontrasting

confidence: 44%

Land Use Alters the Plant-Derived Carbon and Nitrogen Pools in Terraced Rice Paddies in a Mountain Village

Shimoda

Koyanagi

2017

Sustainability

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Abstract:In Japan, terraced paddies in mountain villages are symbolic of the traditional landscape, but they are gradually being abandoned. To compare plant-derived C and N among land uses, we compared adjacent forest floor (FF), agricultural paddy (AP), and post-agricultural paddy (PP) sites. Long-term litter accumulation could explain the significantly higher litter C and belowground biomass C in FF than in AP and PP. The low-density-fraction (LF) soil C was significantly higher in FF than in PP and better reflected land use than the whole-soil C. The AP soil held more N than FF and PP at 20-30 cm, associated with higher LF soil N. Periodic tillage in AP maintains the LF soil N, but N supplied to the surface soil reduced with depth following abandonment. Differences in recycling of organic matter and nutrients among land uses are crucial to plant-derived C and N contents of soil.

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“…In Paraguay, indigenous people grow grey-seeded mucuna leaves which are excellent dead cover that protects soil from erosion and weeds (FAO 2011a). Cover crops are sustainable farming tool that increase SOM and improve soil water dynamics (Steele et al 2012;Poeplau and Don 2015;Basche et al 2016;Duval et al 2016). Basche et al (2016) found that long-term use of a winter rye cover crop enhanced soil water dynamics such as water content and soil water storage in a maize-soybean cropping system.…”

Section: Cover Croppingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional agriculture: a climate-smart approach for sustainable food production

Singh

2017

Energ. Ecol. Environ.

242

118

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Sustainable food production is one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century in the era of global environmental problems such as climate change, increasing population and natural resource degradation including soil degradation and biodiversity loss. Climate change is among the greatest threats to agricultural systems. Green Revolution though multiplied agricultural production several folds but at the huge environmental cost including climate change. It jeopardized the ecological integrity of agroecosystems by intensive use of fossil fuels, natural resources, agrochemicals and machinery. Moreover, it threatened the age-old traditional agricultural practices. Agriculture is one of the largest sectors that sustain livelihood to maximum number of people and contribute to climate change. Therefore, a climate-smart approach to sustainable food production is the need of hour. Traditional agriculture is getting increased attention worldwide in context of sustainable food production in changing climate. The present article advocates traditional agriculture as a climate-smart approach for the sustainable food production and also deliberates the correlation between climate change and agriculture.

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Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils via cultivation of cover crops – A meta-analysis

Cited by 1,118 publications

References 52 publications

Importance of cover crops in alleviating negative effects of reduced soil tillage and promoting soil fertility in a winter wheat cropping system

Importance of cover crops in alleviating negative effects of reduced soil tillage and promoting soil fertility in a winter wheat cropping system

Land Use Alters the Plant-Derived Carbon and Nitrogen Pools in Terraced Rice Paddies in a Mountain Village

Traditional agriculture: a climate-smart approach for sustainable food production

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