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ARS Home » Plains Area » Temple, Texas » Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #405147
Research Project: Contributions of Climate, Soils, Species Diversity, and Management to Sustainable Crop, Grassland, and Livestock Production Systems

Location: Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory

Title: Identifying key factors controlling soil respiration in agricultural fields

Author
item Adhikari, Kabindra
item Anderson, Kelsey
item Smith, Douglas
item Owens, Phillip
item Moore, Philip
item Libohova, Zamir

Submitted to: Agricultural & Environmental Letters
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/18/2023
Publication Date: 11/14/2023
Citation: Adhikari, K., Anderson, K.R., Smith, D.R., Owens, P.R., Moore Jr., P.A., Libohova, Z. 2023. Identifying key factors controlling soil respiration in agricultural fields. Agricultural & Environmental Letters. 8(2). Article e20117. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20117.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20117

Interpretive Summary: Soil respiration is an indicator of biological activity in soil, and is the measure of CO2 release during organic matter decomposition by soil microbes. It is one of the key soil health indicators as it reflects nutrient cycling, and decomposition of organic compounds to inorganic forms available to plants. Soil respiration can be influenced by several factors in the field, and identifying such factors can be useful in soil management decisions. This study investigated the influence of soil properties, soil depth, crop type and slope position in soil respiration and identified key factors with their potential response.

Technical Abstract: Soil respiration is one of the main soil health indicators and is influenced by several factors in the field. Identifying key factors that control soil respiration is desirable for informed soil management decisions and to promote and scale up soil health. The primary goals of this study were to i) quantify the relationships between soil respiration and selected soil properties, crops and landscape position at a field level, and ii) identify key factors controlling these relationships using a neural network model. Ninety soil samples from 0-5, and 5-20 cm soil depth were collected from different slope positions (footslope, backslope, and summit) in three fields planted with soybean, alfalfa, and corn. Cross-validation results showed that the model provided great accuracy (R2: 0.98; RMSE: 7.8, and MAE: 5.7), and could explain nearly 96% of variations in soil respiration across soil depth, crop, and slope positions. Soil depth, NH4-N, crop types, slope position, and silt content were identified as the top 5 factors influencing soil respiration at field level. Levels of potassium, phosphorus, pH, CEC, and MWD were highly sensitive to respiration, but NH4-N, NO3-N, SOM, and clay were less sensitive. Soil respiration increased with pH, EC, MWD, Pot-N-min, and potassium, and decreased with increasing silt content. Soil from the surface layer (0-5 cm) or under soybean or at the summit position in landscape had a higher respiration.