Using 13C isotopic analysis to assess soil carbon pools associated with tile drainage management during drier and wetter growing seasons

Alisha Van Zandvoort, Ian D. Clark, Corey Flemming, Emilia Craiovan, Mark D. Sunohara, Natalie Gottschall, Ronda Boutz and David R. Lapen

Agricultural Water Management, 2017, vol. 192, issue C, 232-243

Abstract: Controlled tile drainage (CTD) is an agricultural management practice with well-documented water quality and agronomic benefits. However, due to field water drainage abatement effects, the practice could potentially impact soil respiration. The δ13C of soil gas samples were analyzed from silt loam CTD and uncontrolled tile drained (UTD) fields cropped with corn, soybean, and forage to test whether CTD affects total soil respiration (RT) through altering residue decomposition and/or gas transport. We also examined whether CTD imparted an over tile (OT) and between tile (BT) locational effect on RT. All gas samples are from bulk rhizosphere and microbial sources; except for the forage crop measurements which included plants growing inside the sampling chamber collars. The mean values of δ13C for RT were not statistically different (p>0.05) between four of the five CTD and UTD field pairs. Neither were the means of δ13C of RT different (p>0.05) between OT and BT locations in four of the five CTD fields. The generalized lack of statistical differences in δ13C of RT observed, may have resulted from the drier and wetter seasonal conditions muting drainage management effects on surface soil water contents. The results could be used to help refine the carbon footprint of tile drainage management practices.

Keywords: Controlled tile drainage; Soil respiration; Gas diffusion; Carbon-13; Greenhouse gas emission; Agricultural fields (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377417302111
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:192:y:2017:i:c:p:232-243

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2017.06.012

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().