Deep soil flipping increases carbon stocks of New Zealand grasslands

Sequestration of soil organic carbon (SOC) has been recognized as an opportunity to off‐set global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Flipping (full inversion to 1–3 m) is a practice used on New Zealand's South Island West Coast to eliminate water‐logging in highly podzolized sandy soils. Flipping...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global change biology 2019-07, Vol.25 (7), p.2296-2309
Main Authors: Schiedung, Marcus, Tregurtha, Craig S., Beare, Michael H., Thomas, Steve M., Don, Axel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon
carbon burial
Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide emissions
Carbon Sequestration
carbon stocks
chronosequence
Fractionation
Grassland
Grasslands
Logging
New Zealand
Organic carbon
Organic soils
Pasture
Podzolic soils
Preservation
Primary
Primary s
re‐sampling
Sandy soils
Shelf life
Soil
Soil horizons
soil organic carbon
Soil profiles
Soil properties
Soil surfaces
Stability
Stocks
Storage
subsoil
Subsoils
Topsoil
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Summary:Sequestration of soil organic carbon (SOC) has been recognized as an opportunity to off‐set global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Flipping (full inversion to 1–3 m) is a practice used on New Zealand's South Island West Coast to eliminate water‐logging in highly podzolized sandy soils. Flipping results in burial of SOC formed in surface soil horizons into the subsoil and the transfer of subsoil material low in SOC to the “new” topsoil. The aims of this study were to quantify changes in the storage and stability of SOC over a 20‐year period following flipping of high‐productive pasture grassland. Topsoils (0–30 cm) from sites representing a chronosequence of flipping (3–20 years old) were sampled (2005/07) and re‐sampled (2017) to assess changes in topsoil carbon stocks. Deeper samples (30–150 cm) were also collected (2017) to evaluate the changes in stocks of SOC previously buried by flipping. Density fractionation was used to determine SOC stability in recent and buried topsoils. Total SOC stocks (0–150 cm) increased significantly by 69 ± 15% (179 ± 40 Mg SOC ha‐1) over 20 years following flipping. Topsoil burial caused a one‐time sequestration of 160 ± 14 Mg SOC ha‐1 (30–150 cm). The top 0–30 cm accumulated 3.6 Mg SOC ha‐1 year‐1. The chronosequence and re‐sampling revealed SOC accumulation rates of 1.2–1.8 Mg SOC ha‐1 year‐1 in the new surface soil (0–15 cm) and a SOC deficit of 36 ± 5% after 20 years. Flipped subsoils contained up to 32% labile SOC (compared to
ISSN:1354-1013
1365-2486
DOI:10.1111/gcb.14588