Soil CO₂ emission in response to organic amendments, temperature, and rainfall

Vegetated land surfaces play an important role in determining the fate of carbon in the global carbon cycle. However, our understanding of the terrestrial biosphere on a global scale is subject to considerable uncertainty, especially concerning the impacts of climatic variables on the carbon cycle. Soil is a source and also a sink of CO₂ exchange and helps in carbon sequestration. Agricultural management practices influence soil water dynamics, as well as carbon cycling by changing soil CO₂ emission and uptake rates. The rate of soil CO₂ emission varies for different crops and different organic amendments. The major goal of this study was to assess the impacts of the type and rate of organic amendment on soil CO₂ emission in a collard greens crop grown in the southeast Texas environment. Thirty-six plots were developed to grow collard greens on Prairie View A&M University's Research Farm. Three types of organic amendments (Chicken manure, Dairy manure, and Milorganite), at four levels of application (0, 168, 336, and 672 kg N/ha) were used and replicated three times. Each organic amendment type was applied to nine randomly selected plots. Three random plots were used as a control in each row. We measured daily soil CO₂ emission for the first two weeks and every other day in a week during the experiment. We evaluated the effects of organic amendments and the application rates on soil CO₂ emission for collard greens during two growing seasons. The results showed higher the application rates for each organic amendment, higher the CO₂ emissions from the soil. The results also showed higher cumulative CO₂ emissions for the soils amended with chicken manure and milorganite, but lowest for the soils amended with dairy manure. This field experiment and analyses help better understand the temporal and spatial variations of soil CO₂ emission, and also help to develop best management practices to maximize carbon sequestration and to minimize soil CO₂ emissions during the growth periods of collard greens under changing temperatures using different organic amendments, and application rates.