Abstract:
Soil organic carbon (SOC) stock plays an important role in the carbon (C) sequestration of agricultural soils. It has a great significance for global carbon cycle and food security. Currently, no country has achieved the expected goal of the “4 per
1000” initiative, which indicated that more farm practices and their combinations need to be explored to help C sequestration in agricultural soils. Meanwhile, the practices in farm management are also associated with climate change, and this presents a big challenge to estimate SOC in the past and future. However, the interactive effects of farm management and climate change on SOC storage have gained less attention, and the management measures which can address future climate change are need to be urgently recommended. In this study, Lishu County in Jilin Province was selected as the study region to predict soil carbon sequestration potential in the farmland. Firstly, based on
2275 comparisons of field observations collected from 187 published articles in the black soil region of Northeast China, agricultural practice-induced changes in SOC stocks were investigated through a meta-analysis method. The practices selected here included tillage (no-tillage (NT), reduced tillage (RT), and deep tillage (DT)), straw return (SR), manure fertilization (MF), and chemical fertilization (CF). Secondly, the temporal dynamics of SOC stock were verified and predicted in 1980-2024 and 2025-
2100 under different farm managements by using DNDC model, respectively. Lastly, the multi-scenarios considering climate change and farm management strategies were designed to predict soil carbon sequestration potential in farmland of 2025-2100. The results showed that: 1) Compared with other three managements, MF had the greatest effect on the increase of SOC, with an increase of 19.44% when the application amounts <20 t/hm
2, 23.97% in the 20~30 t/hm
2, and 31.13% in the >30 t/hm
2 groups of application amounts. The integration of MF with NT and RT clearly increased SOC, with the effect size increasing from 7.41% (NT) to 13.21% (NT+MF) and from 10.78% (RT) to 20.09% (RT+MF) respectively. For all the practices and their combinations, the greatest effect size (44.45%) was achieved under MF+CF combination when the MF application amount >30 t/hm
2. A long application period (>10 a) had a greater effect (40.12%) on SOC sequestration than short application periods (<3 a (17.16%) and 3~10 a (20.34%)). CF+SR+MF practice made the effect larger than that from the separate practice, and its effect size all increased compared with that under separate CF practice across different duration periods. DNDC verification results indicated a significant linear relationship (
R2=0.93, RMSE=0.60 g/kg) for all the SOC simulations compared with the measured values. Under the MF application amounts of 450 t/hm
2, MF+CF, RT+MF, and MF+CF+SR practices all achieved a considerably high carbon sequestration effect on SOC in the short term (<3a). Moreover, MF+CF+SR could achieve a higher carbon sequestration effect on SOC in the medium term (3~10a) and long term (>10a) under the SR ratios of 1/3 or 1/2 conditions. There were significant differences in the effects of various farm managements on soil carbon sequestration in black soil region of Northeast China. MF practice had the most pronounced effect on the increasing of SOC storage. DNDC model can simulate the historical changes in soil carbon stocks with a high accuracy. It also had the ability to predict the farmland soil carbon sequestration potential under future climate scenarios. This research is of great importance for farmland soil quality improvement, sustainable increasing in yield, and formulation of climate change strategies in the black soil region of Northeast China.