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Higher sequestration of wheat versus maize crop carbon in soils under rotations

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A Correction to this article was published on 07 May 2022

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Abstract

In the context of climate change, soil is a major pool of stable carbon on earth, yet knowledge on soil carbon turnover is limited. The difference in 13C/12C content observed between C3 and C4 plant crops has been widely used to distinguish the sources of soil organic carbon under continuous monoculture, but not in C3–C4 rotations. We studied the stability of the δ13CSOC content and the effect of no tillage, conventional tillage, and rotary tillage in 4 soils sampled at 0–5, 5–10, and 10–20 cm depth, in 2018–2019 in a field with long-term history of wheat (C3) and maize (C4) rotations. We also analyzed the results from the literature. The results show that the δ13CSOC is not statistically affected by the sampling date, thus allowing to use this method to distinguish C3 and C4 plant contributions in rotations. Moreover, no-tillage favored the preservation of wheat carbon, and this preservation was accentuated at 10–20 cm depth. δ13CSOC is also affected by fertilization and irrigation. The literature confirmed that wheat-derived carbon is better preserved than maize-derived carbon, on the average.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32071977) and the Chinese Universities Scientific Fund (2021TC106).

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Correspondence to Hai-Lin Zhang.

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Kan, ZR., Han, SW., Liu, WX. et al. Higher sequestration of wheat versus maize crop carbon in soils under rotations. Environ Chem Lett 20, 101–107 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01317-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01317-5

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