Abstract
Conservation agriculture has been shown to have multiple benefits for soils, crop yield and the environment, and consequently, no-till, the central practice of conservation agriculture, has rapidly expanded. However, studies show that the potential for carbon (C) sequestration in no-till farming sometimes is not realized, let alone the ability to maintain or improve crop yield. Here we present a global analysis of no-till induced changes of soil C and crop yield based on 260 and 1,970 paired studies, respectively. We show that, relative to local conventional tillage, arid regions can benefit the most from conservation agriculture by achieving a win-win outcome of enhanced C sequestration and increased crop yield. However, more humid regions are more likely to increase SOC only, while some colder regions have yield losses with soil C loss as likely as soil C gains. In addition to site-specific characteristics and management, a careful assessment of the regional climate is needed to determine the potential benefits of adopting conservation agriculture.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3325-3335 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Global Change Biology |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 8 Feb 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2020 |
Bibliographical note
This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (grant Nos. 41530533 and 41573069) and the National Key R&D Program of China (grant No. 2017YFE0104600). We thank Prof. Xuhui Lee in Yale University, Dr. Zhongkui Luo in Zhejiang University, Prof. Ben Smith in Lund University and Dr. Xunyu Hu in East China Inventory and Planning Institute, State Forestry and Grassland Administration for their helpful comments that led to the improvement of this paper.Keywords
- climate
- conservation agriculture
- crop yield
- meta-analysis
- soil organic carbon
- win-win outcome
- MATTER
- METAANALYSIS
- ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
- BULK-DENSITY
- VARIABILITY
- ORGANIC-CARBON
- FERTILIZER
- NO-TILL
- IMPACTS
- STRATIFICATION
Access to Document
- Sun_et_al_GCB_ClimateDrives_AAM
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Sun, W, Canadell, JG, Yu, L, et al. Climate drives global soil carbon sequestration and crop yield changes under conservation agriculture. Glob Change Biol. 2020; 26: 3325– 3335., which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15001. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.