Journal
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Volume 48, Issue 2, Pages 376-384Publisher
AMER SOC AGRONOMY
DOI: 10.2134/jeq2018.03.0125
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Funding
- Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Competitive Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2013-67019-21384]
- Iowa Nutrient Research Center
- NIFA [577296, 2013-67019-21384] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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Excess NO3 leaching from the agricultural Midwest via tile drainage water has contributed to both local drinking water and national Gulf of Mexico benthic hypoxia concerns. Both in-field and edge-of-field practices have been designed to help mitigate NO3 flux to surface waters. Edge-of-field practices focus on maximizing microbial denitrification, the conversion of NO3 to N-2 gas. This study assessed denitrification rates from two saturated riparian buffers (SRBs) for 2 yr and a third SRB for 1 yr, for a total of five sample years. These SRBs were created by diverting NO3-rich tile drainage water into riparian buffers soils. The SRBs in this study removed between 27 and 96% of the total diverted NO3 load. Measured cumulative average denitrification rate for each SRB sample year accounted for between 3.7 and 77.3% of the total NO3 removed. Both the cumulative maximum and 90% confidence interval denitrification rates accounted for all of the NO3 removed by the SRBs in three of the five sample years, indicating that denitrification can be a dominant NO3 removal mechanism in this edge-of-field practice. When adding the top 20 cm of each core to the cumulative denitrification rates for each SRB, denitrification accounted for between 33 and over 100% of the total NO3 removed. Buffer age (time since establishment) was speculated to enhance denitrification rates, and there was a trend of the soil closer to the surface making up the majority of the total denitrification rate. Finally, both NO3 and C could limit denitrification in these SRBs.
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