Journal
PLOS ONE
Volume 6, Issue 10, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026176
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Funding
- Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Research [RSF 07 516, RSF 07 511]
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There is uncertainty about the potential reduction of soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emission when fertilizer nitrogen (FN) is partially or completely replaced by biological N fixation (BNF) in temperate grassland. The objectives of this study were to 1) investigate the changes in N2O emissions when BNF is used to replace FN in permanent grassland, and 2) evaluate the applicability of the process-based model DNDC to simulate N2O emissions from Irish grasslands. Three grazing treatments were: (i) ryegrass (Lolium perenne) grasslands receiving 226 kg FN ha(-1) yr(-1) (GG+FN), (ii) ryegrass/white clover (Trifolium repens) grasslands receiving 58 kg FN ha(-1) yr(-1) (GWC+FN) applied in spring, and (iii) ryegrass/white clover grasslands receiving no FN (GWC-FN). Two background treatments, un-grazed swards with ryegrass only (G-B) or ryegrass/white clover (WC-B), did not receive slurry or FN and the herbage was harvested by mowing. There was no significant difference in ;annual N2O emissions between G-B (2.38 +/- 0.12 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1) (mean +/- SE)) and WC-B (2.45 +/- 0.85 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1)), indicating that N2O emission due to BNF itself and clover residual decomposition from permanent ryegrass/clover grassland was negligible. N2O emissions were 7.82 +/- 1.67, 6.35 +/- 1.14 and 6.54 +/- 1.70 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1), respectively, from GG+FN, GWC+FN and GWC-FN. N2O fluxes simulated by DNDC agreed well with the measured values with significant correlation between simulated and measured daily fluxes for the three grazing treatments, but the simulation did not agree very well for the background treatments. DNDC overestimated annual emission by 61% for GG+FN, and underestimated by 45% for GWC-FN, but simulated very well for GWC+FN. Both the measured and simulated results supported that there was a clear reduction of N2O emissions when FN was replaced by BNF.
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