Brachiaria humidicola Cultivation Enhances Soil Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Tropical Grassland by Promoting the Denitrification Potential: A 15 N Tracing Study

Lu Xie, Deyan Liu, Christoph Müller, Anne Jansen-Willems, Zengming Chen, Yuhui Niu, Mohammad Zaman, Lei Meng and Weixin Ding ()
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Lu Xie: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Deyan Liu: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Christoph Müller: Institute of Plant Ecology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, 35392 Giessen, Germany
Anne Jansen-Willems: Institute of Plant Ecology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, 35392 Giessen, Germany
Zengming Chen: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Yuhui Niu: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Mohammad Zaman: Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition Section, Joint FAO/IAEA Division, International Atomic Energy Agency, 1400 Vienna, Austria
Lei Meng: College of Tropical Crops, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Weixin Ding: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: Biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) in the tropical grass Brachiaria humidicola could reduce net nitrification rates and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions in soil. To determine the effect on gross nitrogen (N) transformation processes and N 2 O emissions, an incubation experiment was carried out using 15 N tracing of soil samples collected following 2 years of cultivation with high-BNI Brachiaria and native non-BNI grass Eremochloa ophiuroide . Brachiaria enhanced the soil ammonium (NH 4 + ) supply by increasing gross mineralization of recalcitrant organic N and the net release of soil-adsorbed NH 4 + , while reducing the NH 4 + immobilization rate. Compared with Eremochloa , Brachiaria decreased soil gross nitrification by 37.5% and N 2 O production via autotrophic nitrification by 14.7%. In contrast, Brachiaria cultivation significantly increased soil N 2 O emissions from 90.42 μg N 2 O-N kg −1 under Eremochloa cultivation to 144.31 μg N 2 O-N kg −1 during the 16-day incubation ( p < 0.05). This was primarily due to a 59.6% increase in N 2 O production during denitrification via enhanced soil organic C, notably labile organic C, which exceeded the mitigated N 2 O production rate during nitrification. The contribution of denitrification to emitted N 2 O also increased from 9.7% under Eremochloa cultivation to 47.1% in the Brachiaria soil. These findings confirmed that Brachiaria reduces soil gross nitrification and N 2 O production via autotrophic nitrification while efficiently stimulating denitrification, thereby increasing soil N 2 O emissions.

Keywords: biological nitrification inhibition; Brachiaria humidicola; N 2 O emissions; gross N transformation processes; denitrification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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