TITLE:
Bowen Ratio Energy Balance Measurement of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Fluxes of No-Till and Conventional Tillage Agriculture in Lesotho
AUTHORS:
Deb O’Dell, Thomas J. Sauer, Bruce B. Hicks, Dayton M. Lambert, David R. Smith, Wendy Bruns, August Basson, Makoala V. Marake, Forbes Walker, Michael D. Wilcox Jr., Neal Samuel Eash
KEYWORDS:
CO2 Flux; CO2 Emissions; Soil; Soil Carbon; Tillage; Till; No-Till; Bowen Ratio; Micrometeorology; Agriculture; Climate Change; Lesotho; Africa
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Soil Science,
Vol.4 No.3,
March
11,
2014
ABSTRACT: Global food demand requires that soils be used
intensively for agriculture, but how these soils are managed greatly impacts
soil fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2). Soil management practices can
cause carbon to be either sequestered or emitted, with corresponding uncertain
influence on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The situation is further complicated by the lack of CO2 flux measurements for African
subsistence farms. For widespread application in remote areas, a simple experimental methodology is desired. As a first step, the present study
investigated the use of Bowen Ratio Energy Balance (BREB) instrumentation to
measure the energy balance and CO2 fluxes of two contrasting crop
management systems, till and no-till, in the lowlands within the mountains of
Lesotho. Two BREB micrometeorological systems were established on 100-m by
100-m sites, both planted with maize (Zea
mays) but under either conventional (plow, disk-disk) or no-till soil mangement systems. The results demonstrate that with careful maintenance
of the instruments by appropriately trained local personnel, the BREB approach
offers substantial benefits in measuring real time changes in agroecosystem CO2 flux. The periods where the two treatments could be compared indicated greater
CO2 sequestration over the no-till treatments during both the
growing and non-growing seasons.