Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems

doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.016

Title: Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems

Abstract

Land use changes into and out of agricultural production may substantially influence ecosystem carbon (C) balance for many years. We examined ecosystem C balances for eight years after the conversion of 22 year-old Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) grasslands and formerly tilled agricultural fields (AGR) to annual (continuous no-till corn) and perennial (switchgrass and restored prairie) cropland. An unconverted CRP field (CRP-Ref) was maintained as a historical reference. Ecosystem C balance was assessed using adjusted net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEEadj) calculated by adding C removed in harvested biomass to NEE measured using eddy covariance method. The cumulative NEE _adj of the corn and perennial systems on former CRP fields showed that these systems were a net C source to the atmosphere over the 8-year period while on former AGR fields, the perennial systems were net C sinks and the corn system near-neutral. The CRP-Ref was near neutral until a drought year when it became a net source. The corn system on the CRP field will likely reach a new lower soil C equilibrium at least 14 years after conversion but will never regain the C lost upon conversion under current no-till management with residue partially removed. On the other hand, themore »« less

Authors:: Abraha, Michael; Hamilton, Stephen K.; Chen, Jiquan; Robertson, G. Philip

Publication Date:: 2018-05-01

Research Org.:: Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States). Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Contributing Org.:: NSF Long-term Ecological Research Program at the Kellogg Biological Station, and Michigan State University AgBioResearch

OSTI Identifier:: 1437831

Alternate Identifier(s):: OSTI ID: 1459360

Grant/Contract Number:: ACO5-76RL01830; SC0018409

Resource Type:: Published Article

Journal Name:: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Name: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Journal Volume: 253-254 Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0168-1923

Publisher:: Elsevier

Country of Publication:: Netherlands

Language:: English

Subject:: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Eddy covariance; Net ecosystem exchange; Land use change; Corn; Switchgrass; Restored prairie; Climate change mitigation

Citation Formats


                    Abraha, Michael, Hamilton, Stephen K., Chen, Jiquan, and Robertson, G. Philip. Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems.  Netherlands: N. p., 2018. 
        Web.  doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.016.

Copy to clipboard


                    Abraha, Michael, Hamilton, Stephen K., Chen, Jiquan, & Robertson, G. Philip. Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems.  Netherlands.  doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.016.

Copy to clipboard


                    Abraha, Michael, Hamilton, Stephen K., Chen, Jiquan, and Robertson, G. Philip. Tue .  
        "Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems".  Netherlands.  doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.016.

Copy to clipboard


                    
@article{osti_1437831,

  title        = {Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems},

  author       = {Abraha, Michael and Hamilton, Stephen K. and Chen, Jiquan and Robertson, G. Philip},

  abstractNote = {Land use changes into and out of agricultural production may substantially influence ecosystem carbon (C) balance for many years. We examined ecosystem C balances for eight years after the conversion of 22 year-old Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) grasslands and formerly tilled agricultural fields (AGR) to annual (continuous no-till corn) and perennial (switchgrass and restored prairie) cropland. An unconverted CRP field (CRP-Ref) was maintained as a historical reference. Ecosystem C balance was assessed using adjusted net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEEadj) calculated by adding C removed in harvested biomass to NEE measured using eddy covariance method. The cumulative NEEadj of the corn and perennial systems on former CRP fields showed that these systems were a net C source to the atmosphere over the 8-year period while on former AGR fields, the perennial systems were net C sinks and the corn system near-neutral. The CRP-Ref was near neutral until a drought year when it became a net source. The corn system on the CRP field will likely reach a new lower soil C equilibrium at least 14 years after conversion but will never regain the C lost upon conversion under current no-till management with residue partially removed. On the other hand, the perennial systems could fully regain in ~14 years the C lost following conversion. The cumulative NEEadj of the corn systems exhibited a higher C emission than did the perennial systems within the same land use histories, reflecting the dominant role of crop type and management in agricultural ecosystem C balance. Results suggest that converting croplands to grasslands results in immediate C gains whereas converting grasslands to croplands results in permanent (no-till corn with partial residue removal) or temporary (perennial herbaceous crops) net C loss to the atmosphere. Lastly, this has a significant implications for global climate change mitigation where biomass production from annual and perennial crops is promoted to avoid fossil-fuel C emissions (biofuel) or to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (bioenergy C capture and storage).},

  doi          = {10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.016},

  journal      = {Agricultural and Forest Meteorology},

  number       = C,

  volume       = 253-254,

  place        = {Netherlands},

  year         = {2018},

  month        = {5}

}

Copy to clipboard

Journal Article:

Free Publicly Available Full Text

Publisher's Version of Record
DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.016

Other availability

Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 2 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Export Metadata

Save to My Library

Works referenced in this record:

Data from: Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems
dataset, February 2018

Abraha, M.; Hamilton, S. K.; Chen, J.
Net Ecosystem Exchange and C in harvest, 20.03 Kb
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.sc41rn3

Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections:

Carbon debt of field-scale conservation reserve program grasslands converted to annual and perennial bioenergy crops

Journal Article Abraha, Michael ; Gelfand, Ilya ; Hamilton, Stephen K. ; ... - Environmental Research Letters

Over 5 million ha of US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) grasslands have been converted to annual crops since 2000, driven mainly by demand for corn grain ethanol. Much of the soil carbon sequestered under CRP is lost upon conversion, creating a 'carbon debt' that is presumed to be repaid by future greenhouse gas (GHG) savings from ethanol's substitution for petroleum. Model simulations, extrapolations, and national statistics rather than direct measurements have been used thus far to estimate the long-term global warming impact (GWI) of such conversions. Here we report measured GWIs for three 22-year-old CRP grassland fields and three conventionallymore »« less
Cited by 1
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aafc10
Legacy effects of land use on soil nitrous oxide emissions in annual crop and perennial grassland ecosystems

Journal Article Abraha, Michael ; Gelfand, Ilya ; Hamilton, Stephen K. ; ... - Ecological Applications

Land use conversions into and out of agriculture may influence soil–atmosphere greenhouse gas fluxes for many years. We tested the legacy effects of land use on cumulative soil nitrous oxide (N ₂O) fluxes for 5 yr following conversion of 22-yr-old Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) grasslands and conventionally tilled agricultural fields (AGR) to continuous no-till corn, switchgrass, and restored prairie. An unconverted CRP field served as a reference. We assessed the labile soil C pool of the upper 10 cm in 2009 (the conversion year) and in 2014 using short-term soil incubations. We also measured in situ soil N ₂O fluxesmore »« less
Cited by 1
DOI: 10.1002/eap.1745
Evapotranspiration of annual and perennial biofuel crops in a variable climate

Journal Article Abraha, Michael ; Chen, Jiquan ; Chu, Housen ; ... - Global Change Biology. Bioenergy

Eddy covariance measurements were made in seven fields in the Midwest USA over 4 years (including the 2012 drought year) to estimate evapotranspiration (ET) of newly established rain-fed cellulosic and grain biofuel crops. Four of the converted fields had been managed as grasslands under the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for 22 years, and three had been in conventional agriculture (AGR) soybean/corn rotation prior to conversion. In 2009, all sites were planted to no-till soybean except one CRP grassland that was left unchanged as a reference site; in 2010, three of the former CRP sites and the three former AGRmore »« less
Cited by 23
DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12239

Full Text Available
Evaluations of CMIP5 simulations over cropland

Conference Hoffman, Forrest M

Cropland is one of major sources of carbon lost to the atmosphere and directly contributes to the emissions of greenhouse gases. There is, however, large potential for cropland to reduce its carbon flux to the atmosphere and sequester soil carbon through conservative agriculture management including no-tillage, perennial and/or deep root crops, irrigation, and organic fertilization etc. But these estimations on carbon emissions and sequestrations over cropland under future climate changes and variability remain largest uncertain among all other terrestrial biomes. Global climate and earth system models are an effective tool to study the cropland responses and feedbacks to present andmore »« less
Sun Grant/DOE Regional Feedstock Partnership: Final Technical Report

Technical Report Owens, Vance N.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Sun Grant Initiative initiated the Regional Feedstock Partnership (referred to as the Partnership) in 2007 primarily to address information gaps associated with the likelihood for realization of the sustainable and reliable production of a billion-tons of biomass annually to support the U.S. bioenergy industry by the year 2030. Publication of The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Annual Supply (Perlack et al., 2005) in 2005, with its associated yield assumptions, led to the realization that the yield goals and assumptions utilized in that analysis required careful validation. To achieve the overall goal ofmore »« less
DOI: 10.2172/1463330

Full Text Available

Similar Records
Related Works
dataset (1)

Title: Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems

Abstract

Citation Formats

Data from: Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems dataset, February 2018

Data from: Ecosystem carbon exchange on conversion of Conservation Reserve Program grasslands to annual and perennial cropping systems
dataset, February 2018