Mineralization of Soil Organic Carbon and Its Control Mechanisms Under Different Tea Plantations in Southwest Yunnan, China

Dongyu Xiao, Batande Sinovuyo Ndzelu, Xi Chen (), Shuihong Yao and Yueling Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Dongyu Xiao: State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arable Land in China, The Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Batande Sinovuyo Ndzelu: State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arable Land in China, The Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Xi Chen: Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Farmland Conservation and Pollution Prevention, School of Resources and Environment, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
Shuihong Yao: State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arable Land in China, The Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Yueling Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arable Land in China, The Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: China has approximately 3.43 million hectares of tea plantations, which offer significant potential for carbon sequestration and the reduction of CO 2 emissions. However, the mechanisms underlying the stability and mineralization of soil organic carbon (SOC) in different tea plantations remain unclear. This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate the effects of chemical, physical, and microbial factors on SOC mineralization in tea plantations with different methods of forest conversion to tea plantations and different ages of tea plants. Our findings indicate that forest conversion to tea plantation methods and tea planting age significantly influence SOC mineralization. Specifically, the SOC mineralization in tea plantations reclaimed by clear-cutting and burning (FMT4) was lower than in those reclaimed by partial cutting (MT3, MT30, and MT150). This variation is attributed to differences in the chemical structure of SOC, which showed higher proportions of aromatic C (33.4%) and carbonyl/carboxyl C (7.8%), alongside lower proportions of O-alkyl C, in the FMT4 tea plantation compared to the others. Additionally, SOC mineralization was significantly higher in the MT150 tea plantation (15.23 g C kg −1 SOC) than in the MT3 (10.11 g C kg −1 SOC), MT30 (10.38 g C kg −1 SOC), and MT200 plantations (9.13 g C kg −1 SOC). Notably, although the MT200 tea plantation had a higher proportion of O-alkyl C (42.4%) than the MT3 and MT30 plantations (36.4%), and was similar to the MT150 plantation (43.1%), its SOC mineralization remained lower due to the higher clay content (278 g kg −1 ). Correlation analysis and random forest analysis further revealed that physical properties, particularly clay content, are the most significant factors regulating SOC mineralization, followed by the chemical structure, such as O-alkyl C and aromatic C, as well as other physicochemical properties like the carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio, and microbial properties like Gram-positive bacteria. In conclusion, our study highlights the complex interplay of soil physical properties and SOM chemical structure and microbial properties in regulating SOC mineralization, providing valuable insights for improving carbon management in tea plantations.

Keywords: land-use conversion; soil organic carbon; SOC mineralization; tea plantation age; 13 C-CP/TOSS NMR (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: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/9/999/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/9/999/ (text/html)

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:gam:jagris:v:15:y:2025:i:9:p:999-:d:1649545

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().