Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 12:9:e11064.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.11064. eCollection 2021.

Influence of conservation tillage on Greenhouse gas fluxes and crop productivity in spring-wheat agroecosystems on the Loess Plateau of China

Abdul-Rauf Malimanga Alhassan #  1   2 , Chuanjie Yang #  1 , Weiwei Ma  1 , Guang Li  1
Affiliations

Influence of conservation tillage on Greenhouse gas fluxes and crop productivity in spring-wheat agroecosystems on the Loess Plateau of China

Abdul-Rauf Malimanga Alhassan et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

The effects of climate change such as dry spells, floods and erosion heavily impact agriculture especially smallholder systems on the Northwestern Loess Plateau of China. Nonetheless agriculture also contributes to global warming through the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2, CH4 and N2O. Yet this complex conundrum can be alleviated and mitigated through sound soil and water management practices. Despite considerable literature on Conservation Agriculture (CA) as a strategy to improve the resilience and mitigation capacity of agroecosystems, there is still paucity of information on the impacts of CA on crop production and environmental quality on the Plateau. In order to fill this gap this study examined the effects of no-till and straw mulch on crop productivity and greenhouse gas fluxes in agroecosystems on the Plateau where farmers' common practice of conventional tillage (CT) was tested against three CA practices: conventional tillage with straw mulch (CTS), no-till (NT) and no-till with straw mulch (NTS). The results indicated that all three CA practices (CTS, NT and NTS) markedly increased soil water content (SWC), soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) but reduced soil temperature (ST). Average grain yields were 854.46 ± 76.51, 699.30 ± 133.52 and 908.18±38.64 kg ha-1 respectively under CTS, NT and NTS indicating an increase by approximately 33%, 9% and 41% respectively compared with CT (644.61 ± 76.98 kg ha-1). There were significant (p < 0.05) reductions of Net CO2 emissions under NT (7.37 ± 0.89 tCO2e ha-1y-1) and NTS (6.65 ± 0.73 tCO2e ha-1y-1) compared with CTS (10.65 ± 0.18 tCO2e ha-1y-1) and CT (11.14 ± 0.58 tCO2e ha-1y-1). All the treatments served as sinks of CH4but NTS had the highest absorption capacity (-0.27 ± 0.024 tCO2e ha-1y-1) and increased absorption significantly (p < 0.05) compared with CT (-0.21 ± 0.017 tCO2e ha-1y-1); however, CA did not reduce emissions of N2O. These had an influence on Global warming potential (GWP) as NT and NTS resulted in significant reduction in net GWP. Grain yield was significantly correlated positively with SOC and STN (p < 0.05); ecosystem respiration was also significantly correlated with SWC and ST while CH4 flux was highly correlated with ST (p < 0.001). Crop yield and GHG responses to CA were controlled by soil hydrothermal and nutrient changes, thus improving these conditions through adoption of sustainable soil moisture improvement practices such as no-till, straw mulch, green manuring, contour ploughing and terracing can improve crop resilience to climate change and reduce GHG emissions in arid and semi-arid regions.

Keywords: Carbon-dioxide; Climate-smart agriculture; Crop productivity; Global warming potential; Methane; Nitrous oxide; Sustainability.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Rainfall amounts for 2017 (A), 2018 (B) and mean, maximum and minimum temperatures for 2017 (C) and 2018 (D) in the Anjiapo catchment in Dingxi.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Soil water content (A) and soil temperature (B) at various sampling times (10 cm depth).
Figure 3
Figure 3. Soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) among tillage treatments within different depths.
(A-F) Treatments with common letters within a depth are not statistically different at p ≤ 0.05.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Average ecosystem respiration, CH4 and N2O fluxes across treatments in growing season (A, C & E) and non-growing season (B, D & F).
Error bars are standard errors, n = 3.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Al-Kaisi MM, Yin X. Tillage and crop residue effects on soil carbon and carbon dioxide emission in corn–soybean rotations. Journal of Environmental Quality. 2005;34(2):437–445. doi: 10.2134/jeq2005.0437. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alhassan ARM, Ma W, Li G, Jiang Z, Wu J, Chen G. Response of soil organic carbon to vegetation degradation along a moisture gradient in a wet meadow on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Ecology & Evolution. 2018;8(23):11999–12010. doi: 10.1002/ece3.4656. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Allmaras RR, Dowdy RH. Conservation tillage and their adoption in the United States. Soil Tillage Research. 1985;5(2):197–222. doi: 10.1016/0167-1987(85)90030-3. - DOI
    1. An P, Inoue T, Zheng M, Eneji AE, Inanaga S. Agriculture on the loess plateau. In: Tsunekawa A, Liu G, Yamanaka N, Du S, editors. Restoration and development of the degraded loess plateau, China. Tokyo: Springer; 2014. pp. 61–74.
    1. Bolinder MA, Janzen HH, Gregorich EG, Angers DA, Vanden Bygaart AJ. An approach for estimating net primary productivity and annual carbon inputs to soil for common agricultural crops in Canada. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. 2007;118(1-4):29–42. doi: 10.1016/j.agee.2006.05.013. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources