Conventional and Zero Tillage with Residue Management in Rice–Wheat System in the Indo-Gangetic Plains: Impact on Thermal Sensitivity of Soil Organic Carbon Respiration and Enzyme Activity

Asik Dutta (), Ranjan Bhattacharyya (), Raimundo Jiménez-Ballesta, Abir Dey, Namita Das Saha, Sarvendra Kumar, Chaitanya Prasad Nath, Ved Prakash, Surendra Singh Jatav and Abhik Patra
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Asik Dutta: Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India
Ranjan Bhattacharyya: Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India
Raimundo Jiménez-Ballesta: Department of Geology and Geochemistry, Autónoma University of Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Abir Dey: Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India
Namita Das Saha: Centre for Environment Science and Climate Resilient Agriculture, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India
Sarvendra Kumar: Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India
Chaitanya Prasad Nath: ICAR—Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur 208 024, India
Ved Prakash: ICAR- Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research, Modipuram 250 110, India
Surendra Singh Jatav: Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, India
Abhik Patra: Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, India

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: The impact of global warming on soil carbon (C) mineralization from bulk and aggregated soil in conservation agriculture (CA) is noteworthy to predict the future of C cycle. Therefore, sensitivity of soil C mineralization to temperature was studied from 18 years of a CA experiment under rice–wheat cropping system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). The experiment comprised of three tillage systems: zero tillage (ZT), conventional tillage (CT), and strip tillage (ST), each with three levels of residue management: residue removal (NR), residue burning (RB), and residue retention (R). Cumulative carbon mineralization (C t ) in the 0–5 cm soil depth was significantly higher in CT with added residues (CT-R) and ZT with added residues (ZT-R) compared with the CT without residues (CT-NR). It resulted in higher CO 2 evolution in CT-R and ZT-R. The plots, having crop residue in both CT and ZT system, had higher ( p < 0.05) Van’t-Hoff factor (Q 10 ) and activation energy (Ea) than the residue burning. Notably, micro-aggregates had significantly higher Ea than bulk soil (~14%) and macro-aggregates (~40%). Aggregate-associated C content was higher in ZT compared with CT ( p < 0.05). Conventional tillage with residue burning had a reduced glomalin content and β-D-glucosidase activity than that of ZT-R. The ZT-R improved the aggregate-associated C that could sustain the soil biological diversity in the long-run possibly due to higher physical, chemical, and matrix-mediated protection of SOC. Thus, it is advisable to maintain the crop residues on the soil surface in ZT condition (~CA) to cut back on valuable C from soils under IGP and similar agro-ecologies.

Keywords: activation energy; aggregate-associated carbon; carbon mineralization; glomalin; temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition (Q 10 ) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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