Soil CO2 emissions in agricultural watersheds with agroforestry and grass contour buffer strips

Abstract

The potential for agricultural soils to act as a sink and sequester carbon (C) or a source and emit carbon dioxide (CO2) is largely dependent upon the agricultural management system. The establishment of permanent vegetation, such as trees and grass contour buffer strips, may cause accumulation of above- and below-ground C over time, thereby acting as a sink for tropospheric CO2. However, the effects of contour grass strips and grass-tree strips (agroforestry) on soil CO2 emissions have not been extensively studied in row-crop watersheds in the temperate regions. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of agroforestry and grass contour buffer strips and landscape position on soil surface efflux rate of CO2 in three adjacent agricultural watersheds with claypan soils in northeast Missouri. The three watersheds were in a corn-soybean rotation, and contained (1) cropped only (CR), (2) cropped with grass contour strips (GR), or (3) cropped with tree-grass contour strips (AF) management systems. Soil surface CO2 efflux was measured throughout the 2004 growing season at the upper (UBS), middle (MBS), and lower (LBS) backslope landscape positions within the three watersheds. The cumulative soil CO2 production was lowest in the CR (0.9 kg CO2-C m-2) compared to the AF (1.5 kg CO2-C m-2) and GR watersheds (1.5 kg CO2-C m-2). The lower backslope position (1.6 kg CO2-C m-2) across all three watersheds produced 32 and 40% greater cumulative soil CO2 than the upper and middle backslope positions, respectively. A 72-day incubation study determined the effects of 40, 60, 80, and 100% soil water-filled pore space (WFPS) and N rate (0 and 1.39 g KNO3 kg soil-1) on soil CO2 efflux from bulk soil collected under each management system. The cumulative CO2 production was highest in the grass soil (1,279 mg CO2-C kg soil-1) compared to the agroforestry (661 mg CO2-C kg soil-1) and cropped (483 mg CO2-C kg soil-1) soils regardless of WFPS and N rate. The highest cumulative CO2 production for the grass soil (1,279 mg CO2-C kg soil-1) occurred at 80% WFPS, and was approximately 2 to 2.6 times greater than the agroforestry and cropped soils at 80% WFPS. The results of this study indicate that conservation management practices, such as grass and grass-tree contour buffer strips, and landscape position affect soil surface CO2 production and accumulation of soil organic C that may influence soil C sequestration. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.