Crops for Carbon Farming

Christer Jansson; Celia Faiola; Astrid Wingler; Xin-Guang Zhu; Alexandra Kravchenko; Marie-Anne de Graaff; Aaron J Ogden; Pubudu P Handakumbura; Christiane Werner; Diane M Beckles

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.636709

Crops for Carbon Farming

Front Plant Sci. 2021 Jun 4:12:636709. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.636709. eCollection 2021.

Affiliations

¹ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, United States.
² Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
³ School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences and Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
⁴ National Key Laboratory for Plant Molecular Genetics, Center of Excellence for Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Department of Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States.
⁶ Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University, Boise, ID, United States.
⁷ Ecosystem Physiology, University Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
⁸ Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States.

Abstract

Agricultural cropping systems and pasture comprise one third of the world's arable land and have the potential to draw down a considerable amount of atmospheric CO₂ for storage as soil organic carbon (SOC) and improving the soil carbon budget. An improved soil carbon budget serves the dual purpose of promoting soil health, which supports crop productivity, and constituting a pool from which carbon can be converted to recalcitrant forms for long-term storage as a mitigation measure for global warming. In this perspective, we propose the design of crop ideotypes with the dual functionality of being highly productive for the purposes of food, feed, and fuel, while at the same time being able to facilitate higher contribution to soil carbon and improve the below ground ecology. We advocate a holistic approach of the integrated plant-microbe-soil system and suggest that significant improvements in soil carbon storage can be achieved by a three-pronged approach: (1) design plants with an increased root strength to further allocation of carbon belowground; (2) balance the increase in belowground carbon allocation with increased source strength for enhanced photosynthesis and biomass accumulation; and (3) design soil microbial consortia for increased rhizosphere sink strength and plant growth-promoting (PGP) properties.

Keywords: PGPB (plant growth-promoting bacteria); carbon budget; carbon farming; plant-microbe interactions; rhizosphere; rhizosphere microbiome; sustainable agriculture.