Seasonal Net Carbon Exchange in Rotation Crops in the Temperate Climate of Central Lithuania

Abstract

Intelligent agricultural solutions require data on the environmental impacts of agriculture. In order for operationalize decision-making for sustainable agriculture, one needs to establish the corresponding datasets and protocols. Increasing anthropogenic CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere force the choice of growing crops aimed at mitigating climate change. For this reason, investigations of seasonal carbon exchange were carried out in 2013-2016 at the Training Farm of the Vytautas Magnus University (former Aleksandras Stulginskis University), Lithuania. This paper compares the carbon exchange rate for different crops, viz., maize, ley, winter wheat, spring rapeseed and barley under conventional farming. Thisstudy focuses on the carbon exchange rate. We measure the emitted and absorbed CO₂ fluxes by applying the closed chamber method. The biomass measurement and leaf area index (LAI) calculations at different plant growth stages are used to evaluate carbon exchange in different agroecosystems. The differences in photosynthetically assimilated CO₂ rates were significantly impacted by the leaf area index (p = 0.04) during the plant vegetation period. The significantly (p = 0.02-0.05) strong correlation (r = 0.6-0.7) exists between soil respiration and LAI. Soil respiration composed only 21% of the agroecosystem carbon exchange. Plant respiration ranged between 0.034 and 3.613 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹ during the vegetation period composed of a negligible ratio (mean 16%) of carbon exchange. Generally, respiration emissions were obviously recovered by the gross primary production (GPP) of crops. Therefore, the ecosystems were acting as an atmospheric CO₂ sink. Barley accumulated the lowest mean GPP 12.77 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹. The highest mean GPP was determined for ley (14.28 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹) and maize (15.68 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹) due to the biggest LAI and particular bio-characteristics. Due to the highest NEP, the ley (12.66 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹) and maize (12.76 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹) agroecosystems sank the highest C from the atmosphere and, thus, they might be considered the most sustainable items between crops. Consequently, the appropriate choice of crops and their area in crop rotations may reduce CO₂ emissions and their impact on the environment and climate change.

Baležentienė, L.; Mikša, O.; Baležentis, T.; Streimikiene, D. 2019. Seasonal Net Carbon Exchange in Rotation Crops in the Temperate Climate of Central Lithuania. In Sustainability. Vol. 11, Issue 7, 1966, EISSN 2071-1050; doi:10.3390/su11071966; [AGORA (FAO); AGRICOLA (National Agricultural Library); AGRIS - Agricultural Sciences and Technology (FAO); Animal Science Database (CABI); CAB Abstracts (CABI); Chemical Abstracts (ACS); Current Contents - Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences (Clarivate Analytics); Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences (Clarivate Analytics); DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals; EconPapers (RePEc); FSTA - Food Science and Technology Abstracts (IFIS); Genamics JournalSeek; GeoBase (Elsevier); Global Health (CABI); HINARI (WHO); IDEAS (RePEc); Inspec (IET); Journal Citation Reports / Science Edition (Clarivate Analytics); Journal Citation Reports / Social Science Edition (Clarivate Analytics); RePEc; Review of Agricultural Entomology (CABI); Science Citation Index Expanded - Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics); Scopus (Elsevier); Social Sciences Citation Index - Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics); Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics)].