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Nitrous oxide (N2O)-reducing denitrifier-inoculated organic fertilizer mitigates N2O emissions from agricultural soils

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Abstract

The only known sink for nitrous oxide (N2O) is biochemical reduction to dinitrogen (N2) by N2O reductase (N2OR). We hypothesized that the application of N2O-reducing denitrifier-inoculated organic fertilizer could enhance soil N2O consumption while the disruption of nosZ genes could result in inactivation of N2O consumption. To test such hypotheses, a denitrifier-inoculated granular organic fertilizer was applied to both soil microcosms and fields. Of 41 denitrifier strains, 38 generated 30N2 in the end products of denitrification (30N2 and 46N2O) after the addition of Na15NO3 in culture condition, indicating their high N2O reductase activities. Of these 41 strains, 18 were screened in soil microcosms after their inoculation into the organic fertilizer, most of which were affiliated with Azospirillum and Herbaspirillum. These 18 strains were nutritionally starved to improve their survival in soil, and 14 starved and/or non-starved strains significantly decreased N2O emissions in soil microcosms. However, the N2O emission had not been decreased in soil microcosms after inoculating with a nosZ gene-disruptive strain, suggesting that N2O reductase activity might be essential for N2O consumption. Although the decrease of N2O was not significant at field scales, the application of organic fertilizer inoculated with Azospirillum sp. TSH100 and Herbaspirillum sp. UKPF54 had decreased the N2O emissions by 36.7% in Fluvisol and 23.4% in Andosol in 2014, but by 21.6% in Andosol in 2015 (H. sp. UKPF54 only). These results suggest that the application of N2O-reducing denitrifier-inoculated organic fertilizer may enhance N2O consumption or decrease N2O emissions in agricultural soils.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Shigeto Otsuka for his helpful discussion and Chie Hayakawa for her help with gas sampling in the fields. We also thank the technical staffs from the Niigata Agricultural Research Institute and the Institute for Sustainable Agro-ecosystem Services, The University of Tokyo for their assistance with field work. This study was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science through a Postdoctoral Fellowship (14F04390), the Program for Promotion of Basic and Applied Researches for Innovations in Bio-oriented Industry, and the Science and Technology Research Promotion Program for Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Food Industry (26037B and 27004C), Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Engineering Research Center for Biotechnology and School of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Nan Gao

  2. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Weishou Shen

  3. Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Weishou Shen, Kazuo Isobe & Keishi Senoo

  4. Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, 91540-000, Brazil

    Estefania Camargo

  5. Niigata Agricultural Research Institute, Niigata, 940-0826, Japan

    Yutaka Shiratori

  6. Department of Food and Life Sciences, College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University, Ibaraki, 300-0393, Japan

    Tomoyasu Nishizawa

  7. Centre of Excellence for Soil Biology, College of Resources and Environment, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Xinhua He

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  1. Nan Gao
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Correspondence to Weishou Shen.

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Gao, N., Shen, W., Camargo, E. et al. Nitrous oxide (N2O)-reducing denitrifier-inoculated organic fertilizer mitigates N2O emissions from agricultural soils. Biol Fertil Soils 53, 885–898 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-017-1231-z

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