Composition of a Soil Organic Carbon Increment under Different Vegetable Cultivation Patterns: A Study Using Three SOC Pools

Yang Liu, Xiaoyu Liu, Yanfang Feng, Dongsheng Yu and Xuezheng Shi
Additional contact information
Yang Liu: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Xiaoyu Liu: Jiangsu Vocational College of Agriculture and Forestry, Jurong 212400, China
Yanfang Feng: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China
Dongsheng Yu: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Xuezheng Shi: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Previous studies suggest that vegetable cultivation increases soil organic carbon (SOC) storage. However, how stable the SOC increment is, and how greenhouse cultivation contributes to the SOC increment in terms of quantity and stability, remains unclear. Soil samples were taken from three typical vegetable cultivation pattern fields: open field (OF), seasonal greenhouse (SG), and permanent greenhouse (PG), as well as adjacent non-vegetable fields. Three conceptual SOC pools, including active ( C a ), slow ( C s ), and resistant ( C r ) pools were fractionated to evaluate SOC sequestration and its stability in vegetable cultivation. The results indicate that vegetable cultivation is associated with greater stored SOC compared with non-vegetable cultivation (SOC increased by 57.9% on average). Using non-vegetable fields as a reference, SOC increments by vegetable cultivation were associated with a higher proportion of C a (3.7–6.6%) than the reference fields (1.0–2.0%), indicating that the SOC increments might be easily decomposed. Among the three vegetable cultivation patterns, SG, with a higher increase in C r , is recommended due to its relatively more stable SOC sequestration. Overall, vegetable cultivation could enhance the quantity of SOC, but the stability of the SOC increment is affected by the vegetable cultivation pattern.

Keywords: Open field; Greenhouse cultivation; Soil organic carbon pool; Vegetable cultivation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/35/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/35/ (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:jsusta:v:11:y:2018:i:1:p:35-:d:192264

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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