Legume-based mixed intercropping systems may lower agricultural born N2O emissions

Abstract

The area used for bioenergy crops (annual row crops (e.g., wheat, maize), herbaceous perennial grasses, and short-rotation woody crops (e.g., poplar)) is increasing because the substitution of fossil fuels by bioenergy is promoted as an option to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, biomass used for bioenergy production is not per se environmentally benign, since bioenergy crop production is associated with negative side effects such as GHG emissions from soil (dominated by N2O). N2O emissions vary greatly in space and time; thus, direct comparison of soil N2O fluxes from various agro-ecosystems is certainly crucial for the assessment of the GHG reduction potential from energy crops. Therefore, our study aimed to evaluate the two different agro-ecosystems (cropland and agro-forestry) cultivated in central Germany for their environmental impact. In a 1-year field experiment, we compared N2O fluxes from cropland (non-fertilized wheat, N-fertilized wheat, non-fertilized faba bean, and wheat mixed intercropping with faba bean) and agro-forestry (non-fertilized poplar, N-fertilized poplar, non-fertilized Robinia, and poplar mixed intercropping with Robinia) as a randomized split-block design. Rainfall at the field site was slightly over average during the period from 1 April to 1 July in 2014 (201 mm rain) and considerably below average during the same period in 2015 (100 mm rain). Cumulative mean N2O fluxes were up to five fold higher in agro-forestry than in arable crop treatments during 2014 growing period. We hypothesized that the difference in N2O emissions when comparing arable land and agro-forestry was mainly due to the limited water and nutrient uptake of plantations during the first year. Among the arable crops (wheat, N-fertilized wheat, wheat mixed intercropped with bean, and bean), seasonal and annual N2O emissions were highest in soils when faba bean was grown as a mono-crop. On the other hand, cumulative mean N2O fluxes were 31 % lower (p < 0.05) when faba bean mixed with wheat than in soils planted with N-fertilized wheat. The latter clearly suggests that using legume crops as intercrop or mixed crop in wheat may significantly mitigate fertilizer-derived N2O fluxes and may be an effective proxy for increasing GHG emission savings for energy crops.