Soil carbon storage and stability after soil incorporation of grass-clover pastures of different age

Summary

A laboratory incubation study with clover grass pasture soils of six different ages (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 16 production years) was carried out to determine initial soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stocks and their effects on initial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (N2O and CO2) after soil incorporation of the grass-clover pastures. Compared to the soil from the recently established pasture, a significant increase of total soil C and N was observed after 2 years, which was generally increasing with pasture age. GHG emissions were not significantly different among the soils from younger pastures (0 to 5 years), but especially N2O emissions increased markedly in the soil from 16-year old grass-clover. This might mainly be due to an early carbon limitation occurring in the soils from younger pastures, which was also corroborated by decreasing levels of cold-water extractable carbon and early shifts within the microbial community. However, higher emissions from the older pasture soils were offset by their increase in total soil C, which indicates that a longer ley phase – lasting at least for 2 production years - may be beneficial in terms of overall carbon sequestration in systems with temporary grass-clover swards.

Available Versions of this Item

• Soil carbon storage and stability after soil incorporation of grass-clover pastures of different age. (deposited 24 Jun 2011 09:41) [Currently Displayed]
  • Microbial biomass, microbial diversity, soil carbon storage, and stability after incubation of soil from grass–clover pastures of different age. (deposited 13 Jun 2012 06:44)