Abstract

Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils has the capacity to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to improve soil biological, physical, and chemical properties. The review of literature pertaining to soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics within Australian grain farming systems does not enable us to conclude on the best farming practices to increase or maintain SOC for a specific combination of soil and climate. This study aimed to further explore the complex interactions of soil, climate, and farming practices on SOC. We undertook a modeling study with the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator modeling framework, by combining contrasting Australian soils, climates, and farming practices (crop rotations, and management within rotations, such as fertilization, tillage, and residue management) in a factorial design. This design resulted in the transposition of contrasting soils and climates in our simulations, giving soil–climate combinations that do not occur in the study area to help provide insights into the importance of the climate constraints on SOC. We statistically analyzed the model’s outputs to determinate the relative contributions of soil parameters, climate, and farming practices on SOC. The initial SOC content had the largest impact on the value of SOC, followed by the climate and the fertilization practices. These factors explained 66, 18, and 15% of SOC variations, respectively, after 80 years of constant farming practices in the simulation. Tillage and stubble management had the lowest impacts on SOC. This study highlighted the possible negative impact on SOC of a chickpea phase in a wheat–chickpea rotation and the potential positive impact of a cover crop in a sub-tropical climate (QLD, Australia) on SOC. It also showed the complexities in managing to achieve increased SOC, while simultaneously aiming to minimize nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions and nitrate leaching in farming systems. The transposition of contrasting soils and climates in our simulations revealed the importance of the climate constraints on SOC.

Highlights

  • Soils can act as a net source or sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and influence the process of global climate change

  • We examined the complex interactions of soil, climate, and farming practices on soil organic carbon (SOC) through a more systematic approach with the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) agro-ecological model

  • We studied the relative contribution of the variables soil, climate, and farming practices to SOC variations for the first and last 10 years simulated, as well as the relative contribution of farming practices when the soil and climate are fixed

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Summary

Introduction

Soils can act as a net source or sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and influence the process of global climate change. Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) is widely regarded as beneficial to soil fertility, soil structure, nutrient retention, water holding capacity, reduced soil erosion, and is, integral to sustainable farming (Sanderman et al, 2010; Hoyle, 2013). These improvements in soil properties are of high importance in Australia where the soils are ancient and have intrinsically low levels of organic matter in their surface layers. The average stock of SOC in the 0–0.3 m layer is estimated to be 29.7 t/ha in Australia (Viscarra Rossel et al, 2014), which is half that in France (59.9 t/ha; Martin et al, 2011) and about two thirds that in Brazil (about 44 t/ha; Batjes, 2005)

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