Influence of Cultivated Crops and Fertilizers on Soil Respiration (Long-Term Field Experiment of Timiryazev Agricultural Academy)

The study is devoted to assessing the impact of cultivated crops and applied fertilizers on soil respiration— the most intensive CO2 flux from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere. The object was the Long-term field experiment of the Russian State Agrarian University–Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, where the main crops of the Non-Chernozem zone—winter rye, barley, potato, and bare fallow, which are included in crop rotation with liming and application of different fertilizers variants—were selected for measurements. They were carried out by the method of closed dynamic chambers with portable infrared gas analyzers from May 2023 to April 2024. They were divided into two series: vegetation period and period with bare soil, the boundary between which was plowing. Comparing soil respiration during the growing season for individual plots, it was found that most of them were characterized by a wide range of values, and the CO2 emission rates were not statistically different. The dependence of soil respiration on air temperature and soil moisture revealed for some plots is not universal. Two-way analysis of variance showed a significant effect of crop and fertilizer on soil respiration separately, but insignificance of their cumulative effect. The rate of CO2 emission from the soil naturally increased in the variants: no fertilizer < NPK < NPK + manure, and when averaged over crops increased in the sequence potato < fallow < barley < winter rye. For soil organic carbon and total nitrogen content, the identified sequences were repeated for fertilizer variants and were not repeated for crops where the predecessor in the crop rotation and the position of the plot in the microrelief were found to be more important factors. During the period with bare soil, averaging was carried out for fertilizer variants, no significant differences were found between them, and quantitative esti- mates of soil respiration under snow cover were 10‒20 times lower than in the vegetation period.

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