Impact of anaerobic soil disinfestation on seasonal N2O emissions and N leaching in greenhouse vegetable production system depends on amount and quality of organic matter additions

Waqas Qasim; Li Wan; Haofeng Lv; Yiming Zhao; Jing Hu; Fanqiao Meng; Shan Lin; Klaus Butterbach-Bahl

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154673

Impact of anaerobic soil disinfestation on seasonal N₂O emissions and N leaching in greenhouse vegetable production system depends on amount and quality of organic matter additions

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Jul 15:830:154673. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154673. Epub 2022 Mar 18.

Authors

Waqas Qasim¹, Li Wan², Haofeng Lv³, Yiming Zhao³, Jing Hu³, Fanqiao Meng⁴, Shan Lin⁵, Klaus Butterbach-Bahl⁶

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen 82467, Germany; College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address: waqas.qasim@kit.edu.
² Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen 82467, Germany; College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address: li.wan@kit.edu.
³ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China.
⁴ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address: mengfq@cau.edu.cn.
⁵ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China; College of Life Science and Technology, Hubei Engineering University, Hubei 432000, China. Electronic address: linshan@cau.edu.cn.
⁶ Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen 82467, Germany; State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China. Electronic address: klaus.butterbach-bahl@kit.edu.

PMID: 35314244
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154673

Abstract

Greenhouse vegetable production (GVP) systems in China receive excessive amounts of fertilizers (>1500 kg N ha^-1 yr^-1) and irrigation (>1200 mm yr^-1), which results in severe soil degradation. Moreover, soil borne diseases are common as the same crop is planted continuously over years. Anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD) is a method carried out every 3-4 years during the summer fallow period to combat soil-borne diseases and to improve soil health. The standard ASD practice, which is carried out before the cropping season, involves incorporation of organic matter (i.e. rice shells or straw) into the soil, covering of the soil with plastic films and soil irrigation until saturation. However, many farmers incorporate large amounts of organic nitrogen fertilizer for priming ASD. In this study, we investigated if incorporation of rice shells plus chicken manure (ASD+RM; farmers practice) provokes higher environmental N losses (N₂O emissions and N leaching) during the ASD and the following tomato crop growing period as compared to the standard ASD practice (ASD+R: only rice shells) or a Control (fallow, but with incorporation of organic manure, standard in non-ASD years). Results showed that ASD+RM increased seasonal (ASD/fallow period plus tomato crop growing period) soil N₂O emissions by a factor of 3 (ASD+RM: 14.1 kg N₂O-N ha^-1; ASD+R: 4.7 kg N₂O-N ha^-1), with 2/3 of emissions occurring during the 25 days long ASD period. Across all treatments, nitrate (NO₃^-) leaching dominated total N leaching (75%), with significantly lower rates observed for ASD+R as compared to ASD+RM. For both ASD treatments, total dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) leaching was a factor of two higher than for the Control. Crop productivity was not affected by ASD. Our findings imply that ASD+RM should be abandoned as the additional supply of manure N results in high environmental N losses without further increasing yields.

Keywords: Anaerobic soil disinfestation; Greenhouse; N leaching; N(2)O emissions; Rice shells; Yield.

MeSH terms

Agriculture / methods
Anaerobiosis
China
Crops, Agricultural
Fertilizers / analysis
Manure
Nitrogen / analysis
Nitrous Oxide / analysis
Oryza*
Seasons
Soil*
Vegetables

Substances

Fertilizers
Manure
Soil
Nitrous Oxide
Nitrogen