Abstract
Forest soils may become an increasingly important source of N2O, due to disturbances to the forest ecosystem (e.g. fertilization to increase growth, or atmospheric deposition of air-borre nitrogen compounds such as NH3, NO3 and NOx). A lysimeter experiment was used to study the effects of different amounts of N input [0 (control), 30 kg (Medium) and 90 kg (High) N ha−1 y−1 as NH4NO3] on fluxes of N2O, measured by the close chamber method. The estimated annual N2O flux were about 0.4 kg N2O-N ha−1 for control, 0.9 kg N2O-N ha−1 for medium N and 1.8 kg N2O-N ha−1 for high N treatments. The relation between the estimated annual N2O flux and fertilizer dose showed an almost perfect proportionality between fertilizer dose and the increase in N2O flux. This is important, since one crucial question is wether we can extrapolate results from high N-doses to situations with low amounts of N inputs prevailing in forests exposed to moderate input of N. The increase in N2O fluxes from the control to the fertilised treatments corresponds to 1.7% of the annual N input in the medium N treatments and 1.6% of the annual input in the high N treatment.
Published Version
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