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Changes in soil organic carbon pools in a long‐term trial with perennial fodder crops in acid soils of north‐east India
Author(s) -
Sarkar D.,
Meitei Ch. B.,
Das A.,
Ghosh P. K.,
Mandal B.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
grass and forage science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.716
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1365-2494
pISSN - 0142-5242
DOI - 10.1111/gfs.12311
Subject(s) - fodder , perennial plant , agronomy , panicum , pennisetum purpureum , soil carbon , soil water , panicum virgatum , forage , biology , ecology , bioenergy , dry matter , renewable energy
Efficient estimation of soil organic carbon ( SOC ) is vital for understanding and monitoring the effect of perennial fodder crops in conserving SOC . In subtropical regions, there is limited information on SOC accumulation and its allocation into different pools under long‐term grasses and legumes. Therefore, we investigated the dynamics of SOC in a 20‐year‐old field trial with seven perennial grass species and a legume in a Typic Paleudalf soil under subtropical climate in north‐east India by analysing oxidizable organic C (C oc ) and its fractions of very labile ( C VL ), labile ( C L ), less labile ( C LL ) and non‐labile ( C NL ), microbial biomass C (C mic ) and mineralizable C (C min ). Growing perennial fodder crops increased SOC in the 0–0.60 m soil depth from 19.9%–39.6% compared with the conventional cultivation with maize ( Zea mays ). The relative efficacy of the fodder species to SOC accumulation was Setaria sphacelata = Brachieria rosenesis > Panicum maximum cv. Makunia = Arachis pintoi > Panicum maximum cv. Hamil > Paspalam conjugalum = Pennisetum purpureum > Thysanolaena maxima . Among the analysed fractions, C VL , C L , C LL and C mic were influenced most by the fodder crops and the active pools ( C VL + C L ) constituted 71.6% of the SOC . The results indicate that under the tested subtropical climate, soil under perennial grasses and legumes conserves organic C and that most of the SOC is in labile pools of short residence time.