Abstract
Aims
Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in improving soil quality, however, how long-term fertilization influences SOC and contrasting active C (AC) and passive C (PC) pools at large scale remains unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of long-term fertilization on SOC, including AC and PC, across four typical croplands in China and to explore the potential relationships and mechanisms.
Methods
We assessed the effect of chemical fertilizer and manure amendment (standard rate and 1.5 × standard rate of inorganic fertilizer (NPK) with or without manure (M), with a Control for comparison) at three soil depths (0–20 cm, 20–40 cm, 40–60 cm) on SOC, AC and PC.
Results
We found that SOC, AC and PC increased in the order NPK < NPKM < 1.5NPKM. 1.5NPKM resulting in a significant increase in SOC, AC and PC, of 76.3%, 53.0% and 108.5% respectively across the soil profile (0–60 cm) compared with Control. The response ratio of PC to long-term fertilization was 2.1 times greater than that of AC across four sites on average. In addition, clay was identified as the most important factor in explaining the response of AC and PC to different fertilization application.
Conclusions
Long-term fertilization enhanced both AC and PC, but the greater response of PC suggests that fertilization application could enhance the stability of C and thus the potential of cropland for SOC accumulation.
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Acknowledgements
The research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (42177341) and the Soil to Nutrition (Optimising Nutrient Flow) Institute Strategic Programmer Grant (BBS/E/C/000I0310) funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The authors are grateful to the National Soil Fertility and Fertilization Effects Long-term Monitoring Network staff for establishing field sites and for the assistance in the field.
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Zhou, W., Wen, S., Zhang, Y. et al. Long-term fertilization enhances soil carbon stability by increasing the ratio of passive carbon: evidence from four typical croplands. Plant Soil 478, 579–595 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05488-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05488-0