Abstract
The quality (carbon to nitrogen ratio; C/N ratio) of crop residue affects the decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC) due to the nutrient stoichiometry, which requires well-exploration especially on the dynamics and sequestration of SOC in nutrient-sufficient soil. We investigated an 80-day incubation experiment by adding C3 winter wheat (W) and legume (L) straws (with contrasting C/N ratios) as well as their mixture (W + L) into a C4 soil that had experienced years of maize planting and fertilization. Either W or L increased the decomposition rate (ka) of SOC primarily in active pool and released more CO2 over the short-term incubation. Compared with Ct, the W slightly decreased the ka, while the L increased the ka by 49.2% than Ct, and by 75.0% than W. The L increased the straw-derived SOC by 10.6% than W, while it resulted in a higher mineralization of native SOC, which was 2.04 times that of W. The W + L yielded the largest net gain in SOC at 1.35 g kg−1, which followed by the W (0.66 g kg−1) and the L (0.22 g kg−1). Incorporating the lower C/N ratio’s legume straw more stimulated the decomposition of both active and native SOC even in fertilized soil, which could be the most effective at sequestrating SOC when combing with wheat straw. These findings suggest the difference in crop straw should be considered for SOC sequestration potential particularly in response to the increasingly intensified agriculture.
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Abbreviations
- C/N ratio:
-
Carbon to nitrogen ratio
- LGM:
-
Legume green manure
- Ct:
-
Control treatment
- W:
-
Wheat straw addition
- L:
-
Legume straw addition
- W + L:
-
Both wheat and legume straws addition
- DAI:
-
Day after incubation
- MRT:
-
Mean residence time
- CSE:
-
Carbon sequestration efficiency
- MBC:
-
Microbial biomass carbon
- MBN:
-
Microbial biomass nitrogen
- LOC:
-
Labile organic carbon
- NLOC:
-
Non-labile organic carbon
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the support provided by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFD1900700), and the Key Research and Development program of Shaanxi (2022ZDLNY02-06), China.
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Financial supports for this research were provided by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFD1900700), and the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (32372823), the Key R&D Program of Shaanxi (2022ZDLNY02-06), China.
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Xiushuang Li: conceptualization; formal analysis; resources; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. Jianglan Shi: conceptualization; project administration; supervision; writing—review and editing. Juan Chen: data curation; methodology; investigation; validation; visualization. Xiaohong Tian: conceptualization; funding acquisition; project administration; supervision; writing—review and editing.
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Li, X., Shi, J., Chen, J. et al. Crop Straws with Contrasting C/N Ratios Affect the Organic Carbon Turnover and Its Net Sequestration Efficiency When Solely or Jointly Incorporated to a Fertilized Soil. J Soil Sci Plant Nutr (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-024-01672-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-024-01672-6