Legume green manure as partial fallow replacement in semiarid Saskatchewan: Effect on carbon fluxes

Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, largely due to burning of fossil fuels, may accentuate the risk of global warming. Scientists are optimistic that with appropriate management soils can function as sinks for C and contribute to CO2 abatement strategies. The objective of this study was to determine if soil C can be increased using an annual legume green manure (GM) as partial fallow replacement in a fallow-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-wheat (F-W-W) rotation in the Brown soil zone of Saskatchewan. In 1995 and 1996 we measured soil C fluxes in all phases of F-WW and GM-W-W rotations, which were two of the treatments in an experiment initiated in 1987 on a medium-textured Orthic Brown Chernozem. The GM, Indianhead black lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus) was estimated to add 1800 and 1400 kg C ha(-1) in 1995 and 1996, respectively. Annual inputs of C in residues of the wheat crops were two to three times those of GM. Comparison of CO2 emissions from GM with those from the fallow phase of the F-W-W system suggested that GM largely decomposed in the interval between incorporation (mid-July) and freeze-up in fall. Fluxes of CO2 from the wheat phases of GM-W-W closely matched those from the corresponding phases of F-W-W, confirming that there was little carryover of undecomposed GM to the following growing season. Our results suggest that, in a 3-yr rotation, partial fallow replacement with legume GM may have only a minor impact on C sequestration because the increase in C inputs is relatively small (similar to 25% in this study) and GM decomposes rapidly in the soil due to its narrow C:N ratio (12-13). Green manuring may, however, play a more significant role in enhancing soil C levels in a F-W system, where relatively large increases in C inputs could be achieved using currently-available legume species.