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Soil organic carbon cycling in a long-term agricultural experiment,Switzerland

Bliedtner, Marcel; Stalder, Tobias; Mäder, Paul; Fließbach, Andreas; Salazar, Gary; Sönke, Szidat and Zech, Roland (2018) Soil organic carbon cycling in a long-term agricultural experiment,Switzerland. In: Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 20, EGU2018-15897.

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Document available online at: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2018/EGU2018-15897.pdf


Summary

Soils are one of the largest organic carbon pools and changes in the carbon release from soils has considerable impact on the composition of atmospheric CO2. Alongside the accelerated carbon release from soils by anthro-pogenic warming (Crowther et al., 2016), agricultural use strongly affects soil organic carbon (SOC) (Johnstonet al., 2009). Conversion from conventional to organic farming has been suggested a valuable contribution to sequester SOC providing a great mitigation potential within agricultural practices (Smith et al., 2008).Here we present SOC contents and 14C activity under two different farming practices in the long-termagricultural DOK trial at Therwil, Switzerland (Mäder et al., 2002). In this long-lasting agricultural experiment, we compare biodynamic farming (biodyn), which receives manure and biodynamic preparations, with conventional farming (conmin), which receives only mineral fertilizers. We analyzed functional SOC fractions from both farming practices for SOC concentration and radiocarbon (∆14C) in two soil layers (0-20 cm and 20-50 cm).Three SOC fractions were obtained by density and particle size fractionation: particular organic matter (POM,labile pool), mineral-associated organic matter <20μm (MOM <20μm, stable pool) and mineral-associatedorganic matter >20μm (MOM >20μm, labile pool).Our results clearly show higher SOC concentrations for biodyn compared to conmin in all SOC fractions in the upper soil layer (0-20 cm). In the subsoil (20-50 cm) we found a negligible influence of farming practices with depth. High ∆14C values in the POM and >20μm fraction indicated that they are a more labile and fastcycling carbon pool, whereas lower∆14C values in the <20μm fraction indicate that this fraction represents astable and slowly cycling carbon pool. ∆14C differences between biodyn and conmin occurred in the POM and>20μm fraction, with higher ∆14C values in the biodyn system suggesting greater input of fresh plant material with a faster turnover.


EPrint Type:Conference paper, poster, etc.
Type of presentation:Paper
Keywords:DOK trial, soil organic carbon cycling, soil sciences, long-term experiments
Subjects: Soil > Soil quality
"Organics" in general > Countries and regions > Switzerland
Research affiliation: Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Soil
Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Sustainability > Climate
Switzerland > Other organizations
Germany > Other organizations
Deposited By: Mäder, Paul
ID Code:34925
Deposited On:08 Mar 2019 09:38
Last Modified:06 Jan 2021 15:23
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

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