Monday, 13 November 2006
125-4

Influence of Water Management on Carbon Exchanges over Organic Soils.

Cliff T. Johnston1, Richard Grant2, and Laura Bowling2. (1) Purdue Univ, Crop Soil and Environmental Sciences, Dept of Agronomy, West Lafayette, IN 47907, (2) Purdue Univ, Agronomy Dept, 915 W State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907-2054

Recent years have witnessed a witnessed a surge of activity in the field of carbon sequestration.  Although considerable attention has focused on management practices that can increase the rate of accumulation of soil carbon, the loss of carbon from cultivated organic soils which represent only a small proportion of the agricultural landscape, can play a dominant, negative role.  In Indiana, for example, the CENTURY model has predicted that more carbon is being lost from the cultivated organic soils (< 1.5 percent of the total agricultural land area) than is being stored from using conservation tillage and savings from being set aside in the Conservation Research Program.  This study seeks to quantify these estimates to explore the influence of water management.  In this study, CO2 flux measurements are being combined with periodic measures of photosynthetic activity, water table height and soil moisture measurements.


Back to Organic Soils and Changing Environments
Back to S11 Soils & Environmental Quality

Back to The ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings (November 12-16, 2006)