Abstract
Land use change driven by diet, globalization, and technology advancement have greatly influenced agricultural production and environment in the mollisols region of China, with a marked impact on the depletion of soil organic matter, a signature property of mollisols. Here we report findings on soil organic carbon (SOC) change in three different cropping systems (soybean, soybean/maize, corn) in Northeast China during a 10-year time span. The results indicated that the decline rate of SOC in recent ten years (0.27 g kg−1 yr−1) has slowed down considerably compared to previous decades (1.12 g kg−1 yr−1). Crop system conversion from soybean monocropping to corn monocropping or break system was the critical factor for SOC change, and the background SOC was the second influence factor. When approaching a SOC turning point, conversion from low carbon input crop system (soybeans monocropping) to high carbon input crop system helped slow down the SOC decline (break crop) or even improve SOC (corn monocropping) in mollisols regions. This result implied that imported soybean has brought benefit for Northeast China. But for sustainable goal in China’s mollisols region, straw returning, optimized nitrogen fertilization and no tillage are all necessary whatever in continues maize or rotation system.
Highlights
Land use change driven by diet, globalization, and technology advancement have greatly influenced agricultural production and environment in the mollisols region of China, with a marked impact on the depletion of soil organic matter, a signature property of mollisols
The variation of soil organic carbon (SOC) among the samples decreased from ±10.3 g kg−1 in 2005 to ±7.2 g kg−1 in 2014, which was ascribing to the uniform management practice in past ten years
These results demonstrate that in farmer’s field, different cropping systems has led to substantial different SOC change
Summary
Land use change driven by diet, globalization, and technology advancement have greatly influenced agricultural production and environment in the mollisols region of China, with a marked impact on the depletion of soil organic matter, a signature property of mollisols. When approaching a SOC turning point, conversion from low carbon input crop system (soybeans monocropping) to high carbon input crop system helped slow down the SOC decline (break crop) or even improve SOC (corn monocropping) in mollisols regions. This result implied that imported soybean has brought benefit for Northeast China. Northeast China is one of three main mollisols regions in the world, with a total of 70 thousand km[2 2,8] This area has become an important food basket since 1950s due to the fertile soil, producing 15.9%, 33.6%, and 33.9% of rice, corn, and soybeans of whole China in 20149. It is critical time to distinguish key driving forces and take proper counter-measures in order to maintain or improve SOC in China’s mollisols regions
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