Changes in soil organic carbon storage under different agricultural management systems in the Southwest Amazon Region of Brazil

Abstract

The Cerrado and Amazon regions of Brazil are probably the largest agricultural frontier of the world, and could be a sink or source for C depending on the net effect of land use change and subsequent management on soil organic C pools. We evaluated the effects of agricultural management systems on soil organic C (SOC) stocks in the Brazilian states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso, and derived regional specific factors for soil C stock change associated with different management systems. We used 50 observations (data points) in this study, including 42 dealing with annual cropping practices and 8 dealing with perennial cropping, and analyzed the data in linear mixed-effect models. No tillage (NT) systems in Cerrado areas increased SOC storage by 1.08 ± 0.06 relative to SOC stocks under native conditions, while SOC storage increased by a modest factor of 1.01 ± 0.17 in Cerradão and Amazon Forest conditions. Full tillage (FT) had negative effect on SOC storage relative to NT, decreasing SOC stocks by a factor of 0.94 ± 0.04, but did not significantly reduce SOC stocks relative to native levels when adopted in the Cerrado region. Perennial cropping had a minimal impact on SOC stocks, estimated at a factor value of 0.98 ± 0.14, suggesting these systems maintain about 98% of the SOC stock found under native vegetation. The results suggest that NT adoption may be increasing SOC with land use change from native vegetation to cropland management in the Cerrado region of Brazil.