Sown alfalfa pasture decreases grazing intensity while increasing soil carbon: Experimental observations and DNDC model predictions

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Grasslands are the most important land use in China and have experienced extensive degradation in the past few decades due to overgrazing. However, regionally viable solutions to grazing intensity alleviation remained elusive to date.

Methods

Here, we evaluated the grazing intensity effects of sown alfalfa pastures in northern China using an experiment-modeling combined approach that involved six sites in field experiments and five provinces in DNDC modeling of sown alfalfa pasture’s forage production and carbon sequestration potentials in marginal lands.

Results

Our results showed that the sown alfalfa pasture’s dry-matter yield varied between 4.5 and 9.0 Mg ha-1 under rainfed and irrigated conditions, respectively, from 2025 to 2035. If half of the

SUBMITTER: Xu L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9720138 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature