Comparing Biochar Application Methods for Switchgrass Yield and C Sequestration on Contrasting Marginal Lands in Pennsyl
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Comparing Biochar Application Methods for Switchgrass Yield and C Sequestration on Contrasting Marginal Lands in Pennsylvania, USA Roger T. Koide 1 & Binh Thanh Nguyen 2 & R. Howard Skinner 3 & Curtis J. Dell 3 & Paul R. Adler 3 & Patrick J. Drohan 4 & Megan Licht 1 & Monica Boyer Matthews 1 & Rachel Nettles 1 & Kevin Ricks 1 & John Watkins 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract To avoid competition with food crops, biofuel feedstocks may need to be produced on economically marginal lands where yields are limited and replacement of existing vegetation will reduce soil C, foregoing some CO2 emission savings. Therefore, our first goal was to determine whether biochar application to marginal lands could improve switchgrass yield while sequestering sufficient soil C to eliminate the negative impact of cultivation. Because it may be difficult to obtain large quantities of biochar, our second goal was to compare small, incremental and large, all-at-once biochar applications. Our third goal was to determine whether biochar had any negative effects on earthworms, mycorrhizal fungi, soil bacteria, soil fungi, and soil enzyme activity. We grew switchgrass at two sites with poorly drained soils and two sites with excessively drained soils. Irrespective of site, biochar significantly increased yield when we rototilled in the entire amount before planting but not when we applied it incrementally between crop rows using a chisel plow. Biochar increased soil C stocks, in some cases increasing it beyond that found in soils of intact marginal land vegetation. Nevertheless, mixing biochar with soil had little or no impact on earthworm activity, mycorrhizal colonization, soil bacterial and fungal communities, and soil enzyme activities. We conclude that biochar may be part of an effective strategy for producing switchgrass on marginal lands, but the choice of application method depends on the relative importance of several considerations including biochar availability, switchgrass yield, C sequestration, soil erosion, and ease of application. Keywords Crop yield . Soil C . Mycorrhizal fungi . Root growth . Soil enzymes . Soil microbes
Introduction The renewable fuel standard of the US Environmental Protection Agency requires the production of 36 billion Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-018-9940-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Roger T. Koide [email protected] 1
Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
2
Institute of Environmental Science, Engineering and Management, Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
3
Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit, USDA-ARS, University Park, PA 16802, USA
4
Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
gallons of renewable fuel by 2022, including 15 billion gallons of grain-based ethanol and 21 billi
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