Effect of the temperature and moisture on the N2O emission from some arable soils

The effect of the temperature and moisture on the emission of N2O from arable soils was studied in model experiments with arable soils at three contrasting levels of wetting and in a wide temperature range (from -5 to +25A degrees C), including freeze-thaw cycles. It was shown that the losses of fertilizer nitrogen from the soils with water contents corresponding to 60 and 75% of the total water capacity (TWC) did not exceed 0.01-0.09% in the entire temperature range. In the soils with an elevated water content (90% of the TWC) at 25A degrees C, the loss of fertilizer nitrogen in the form of N2O reached 2.35% because of the active denitrification. The extra N2O flux initiated by the freeze-thaw processes made up 88-98% of the total nitrous oxide flux during the entire experiment.