Abstract
The application of biochar amendments to soil has been proposed as a strategy for mitigating global carbon (C) emissions and soil organic carbon (SOC) loss. Biochar can provide additional agronomic benefits to cropping systems, including improved crop yield, soil water holding capacity, seed germination, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and soil pH. To maximize the beneficial effects of biochar amendments towards the inventory, increase, and management of SOC pools, nondestructive analytical methods such as ground penetrating radar (GPR) are needed to identify and quantify belowground C. The use of GPR has been well characterized across geological, archaeological, engineering, and military applications. While GPR has been predominantly utilized to detect relatively large objects such as rocks, tree roots, land mines, and peat soils, the objective of this study was to quantify comparatively smaller, particulate sources of SOC. This research used three materials as C sources: biochar, graphite, and activated C. The C sources were mixed with sand—12 treatments in total—and scanned under three moisture levels: 0%, 10%, and 20% to simulate different soil conditions. GPR attribute analyses and Naïve Bayes predictive models were utilized in lieu of visualization methods because of the minute size of the C particles. Significant correlations between GPR attributes and both C content and moisture levels were detected. The accuracy of two predictive models using a Naïve Bayes classifier for C content was trivial but the accuracy for C structure was 56%. The analyses confirmed the ability of GPR to identify differences in both C content and C structure. Beneficial future applications could focus on applying GPR across more diverse soil conditions.
Highlights
The transition of global land resources into managed agricultural systems has greatly changed the terrestrial C balance, and this phenomenon has been accelerated in recent decades by the increase in human population and demands for food, feed, fiber, and fuel [1,2]
Land use changes into cropland and grassland systems have resulted in a significant loss of soil organic carbon (SOC), which is the dominant component of soil organic matter (SOM)
The detection of soil moisture variation in our study further indicates the utility of deploying ground penetrating radar (GPR) in more complex soil conditions
Summary
The transition of global land resources into managed agricultural systems has greatly changed the terrestrial C balance, and this phenomenon has been accelerated in recent decades by the increase in human population and demands for food, feed, fiber, and fuel [1,2]. Land use changes into cropland and grassland systems have resulted in a significant loss of soil organic carbon (SOC), which is the dominant component of soil organic matter (SOM). Incorporation of stable, recalcitrant C into soils via biochar amendments is one potential approach. Being highly recalcitrant to decomposition, biochar can significantly decrease the rate at which photosynthetically fixed C is returned to the atmosphere [7,8]. In addition to CO2, biochar can offset other greenhouse gases including nitrous oxide and methane [9,10,11]
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