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Mitigation of yield-scaled greenhouse gas emissions from irrigated rice through Azolla, Blue-green algae, and plant growth–promoting bacteria

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Abstract

Irrigated transplanted flooded rice is a major source of methane (CH4) emission. We carried out experiments for 2 years in irrigated flooded rice to study if interventions like methane-utilizing bacteria, Blue-green algae (BGA), and Azolla could mitigate the emission of CH4 and nitrous oxide (N2O) and lower the yield-scaled global warming potential (GWP). The experiment included nine treatments: T1 (120 kg N ha−1 urea), T2 (90 kg N ha−1 urea + 30 kg N ha−1 fresh Azolla), T3 (90 kg N ha−1 urea + 30 kg N ha−1 Blue-green algae (BGA), T4 (60 kg N ha−1 urea + 30 kg N ha−1 BGA + 30 kg N ha−1 Azolla, T5 (120 kg N ha−1 urea + Hyphomicrobium facile MaAL69), T6 (120 kg N ha−1 by urea + Burkholderia vietnamiensis AAAr40), T7 (120 kg N ha−1 by urea + Methylobacteruim oryzae MNL7), T8 (120 kg N ha−1 urea + combination of Burkholderia AAAr40, Hyphomicrobium facile MaAL69, Methylobacteruim oryzae MNL7), and T9 (no N fertilizer). Maximum decrease in cumulative CH4 emission was observed with the application of Methylobacteruim oryzae MNL7 in T7 (19.9%), followed by Azolla + BGA in T4 (13.2%) as compared to T1 control. N2O emissions were not significantly affected by the application of CH4-oxidizing bacteria. However, significantly lower (P<0.01) cumulative N2O emissions was observed in T4 (40.7%) among the fertilized treatments. Highest yields were observed in Azolla treatment T2 with 25% less urea N application. The reduction in yield-scaled GWP was at par in T4 (Azolla and BGA) and T7 (Methylobacteruim oryzae MNL7) treatments and reduced by 27.4% and 15.2% in T4 and T7, respectively, as compared to the T1 (control). K-means clustering analysis showed that the application of Methylobacteruim oryzae MNL7, Azolla, and Azolla + BGA can be an effective mitigation option to reduce the global warming potential while increasing the yield.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Director, Dean, and PG School of Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi for providing all facilities required in this study. We are also thankful to Head, Dr. G. Abraham and Dr. Sunil Pabbi, Division of Microbiology, IARI, for providing Azolla and BGA for experimentation. Financial support to S.K.M. during Ph.D. as UGC-JRF/SRF provided by University Grant Commission (UGC) is gratefully acknowledged. This study has been supported by the grant of National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA, IARI/112-15) project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environment Science and Climate Resilient Agriculture, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Sandeep K. Malyan, Arti Bhatia, Ritu Tomer, Ramesh Chand Harit & Niveta Jain

  2. Division of Design of Experiments, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Arpan Bhowmik

  3. Division of Microbiology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Rajeev Kaushik

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  1. Sandeep K. Malyan
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  2. Arti Bhatia
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Contributions

S.K.M.: investigation, writing—original draft. A.B.: conceptualization, supervision, writing—review and editing. R.T.: sample analysis. R.C.H.: field management. A.B.: statistical analysis. N.J.: writing—initial draft. R.K.: conceptualization, supervision.

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Correspondence to Arti Bhatia.

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Malyan, S.K., Bhatia, A., Tomer, R. et al. Mitigation of yield-scaled greenhouse gas emissions from irrigated rice through Azolla, Blue-green algae, and plant growth–promoting bacteria. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 51425–51439 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14210-z

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