Major limitations to achieving "4 per 1000" increases in soil organic carbon stock in temperate regions: Evidence from long-term experiments at Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom.

ABSTRACT: We evaluated the "4 per 1000" initiative for increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) by analysing rates of SOC increase in treatments in 16 long-term experiments in southeast United Kingdom. The initiative sets a goal for SOC stock to increase by 4‰ per year in the 0-40 cm soil depth, continued over 20 years. Our experiments, on three soil types, provided 114 treatment comparisons over 7-157 years. Treatments included organic additions (incorporated by inversion ploughing), N fertilizers, introducing pasture leys into continuous arable systems, and converting arable land to woodland. In 65% of cases, SOC increases occurred at >7‰ per year in the 0-23 cm depth, approximately equivalent to 4‰ per year in the 0-40 cm depth. In the two longest running experiments (>150 years), annual farmyard man

SUBMITTER: Poulton P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6001646 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature