soil health and environmental management for sustainable agricultural production systems

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1 Carbon Management and Sequestration Center Soil Health and Environmental Management for Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems Rattan Lal Carbon Management and Sequestration Center The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio

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Page 1: Soil Health and Environmental Management for Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

Soil Health and Environmental Management for Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems

Rattan LalCarbon Management and Sequestration Center

The Ohio State UniversityColumbus, Ohio

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

-38

18,000 BC6,000 BC 14,000 BC10,000 BC2,000 BCAD 2,000-42-40

-36-34

Warm & Wet

Cold & Dry

δ18

(0%

)

8,000 BCBeginning of Agriculture

1750Industrial

Revolution

EARTH’S HISTORIC TEMPERATUREAND THE EVOLUTION OF AGRICULTURE

(Fagan, 2004)

Time

THE LONG SUMMERAnthropocene

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

THE ANTHROPOGENIC DRIVER

I = P x A x T

P = Population A = Affluence T = Technology

Over the last10,000 years, the number of humans has increased about a thousand-fold from 2- 20 million to7.3 billion.

1.01800

1.31850

1.71900 1.8

1910 1.91920

2.11930

2.31940

2.51950

3.01960

3.71970

4.419805.3

1990

6.12000

7.02011

7.52020

8.12030

8.62040

9.72050

11.22100

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People living in water-stressed river basins:

2000 = 2.3 bn 2025 = 3.5 bn

Scarce Water Resources: Ogalalla, IGP, NCP, etc.

HUMAN-ECOSYSTEM INTERACTIONS

Population2015 – 7.3B2050 – 9.7B2100 – 11.2B

Soil ErosionWater = 1.1Bha

Wind = 0.55Bha

Secondary Salinization

20% of all irrigated lands

Algal BloomsRegions: Great Lakes, Gulf of

Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, Lake Taihu in China, Baltic Sea

etc.

Loss of Agric. Land to Sealing and UrbanizationBy 2030, global urban land cover

will increase by 152 Mha or 10% of current arable land area

Loss of Biodiversity1000 to 10,000 sp./yr,

background rate of 5 sp./yr

Tropical Deforestation1990s = 8 Mha/yr

2000s = 7.6 Mha/yrA region equivalent to Sri Lanka

Loss of Terrestrial C Pool

Land Use = 486 Pg Soil = 78 Pg

www.nrcs.usda.govwww.soils4teachers.orgLal (2015)thewatchers.adorraeli.comwww.emaze.comwww.sustainableworks.org

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

THE RESOURCES USED FOR AGRICULTURE

• 38% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface is used for agriculture,• 75% of agricultural land (3.73 Bha) is allocated to raising animals,• 70% of the global freshwater withdrawals are used for irrigation,• 30-35% of global greenhouse gas emissions are contributed by

agriculture,

And yet 1 in 7 persons is food-insecureand 2-3 in 7 are malnourished.

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MEETING FOOD DEMAND BY 2050The world produces enough food to feed 10 billion people . Thus, food and nutritional security must be achieved by:• Reducing waste (30-50%),

• Increasing access to food by addressing poverty, inequality, wars and political instability,

• Improving distribution,

• Increasing use of pulses and plant-based diet,

• Accepting personal responsibility of not taking things for granted, and

• Increasing agronomic productivity from existing land, restoring degraded lands, enhancing BNF by legumes and converting some agricultural land for nature conservancy without any conversion of natural land to agro-ecosystems,through sustainable intensification

sustainable intensification

No additional appropriation of land and

water to agriculture

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Resilience of Soil-Ecological Systems

It has multiple regimes (stable states) which are separated by thresholds

Thresholds

Critical Threshold

The current state of the system

Possible states in which the system can still have the same function Irreversible

Degradation

Resilience

Regime Shift

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

• Extractive Farming/Subsistence

• Depletion of SOC and Nutrients• Decline in Soil Structure

• Loss of Soil Resilience

• Decline in Ecosystem Functions and Services

• Loss of Soil biodiversity• Disruption of Key Processes

• Hunger• Malnutrition• Political Unrest• Civil Strife• War and insecurity• The Migrant Crisis

Severe Degradation

THE REGIME SHIFT BY EXTRACTIVE

FARMING

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• Replace what is removed,

• Respond wisely to what is changed, and

• Predict what will happen from anthropogenic and natural perturbations

SUSTAINABLE SOIL MANAGEMENT

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The strategy is to produce more crops:

• from less land,• per drop of water,• per unit input of fertilizers

and pesticides,• per unit of energy, and• per unit of C emission.

Produce morefrom less

SUSTAINABLE INTENSIFICATION

Pulses in rotation can produce more

from less

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MOST IMPORTANT THINGS CANNOT BE MEASURED BUT MUST BE MANAGED

(Edward Demmings)Therefore, question is not "What is there in the soil that can be measured, but what it

does which must be quantified "?

&

What it does is "soil quality".

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

SOIL QUALITY

Soil quality is a journey and not a destination,

Because a destination keeps changing with demands of each generation.

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“The first step in the science of agriculture is the recognition of soils and of how to distinguish that which is of good quality and that which is of inferior quality. He who does not possess this knowledge lacks the first principles and deserves to be regarded as ignorant”.

(Vol. 1, p. 23)

“One must also take into consideration the depth of the soil, for it often happens that its surface layer may be black.”

(Vol. 1, p. 336)

a Moorish Philosopher wrote in the “Book on Agriculture” during the 12th century:

Ibn-Al-Awan,

KITAB-AL-FELAHA

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

PULSES & SDGS

• Soil restoration • Human Nutrition• Climate Mitigation

Chemical• Recycling nutrients• Soil pH

• CEC• Elemental balance

Biological• BNF• MBC• SOC

• Disease-suppressive soils

• Soil enzymes• Biodiversity

(earthworms)

PhysicalImproving:

• Aggregation (glomalin)• Porosity • Tilth (biopores)• Aeration Soil

Health

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BNF BY PULSE CROPS

• 50-80% of N uptake in legumes comes from BNF.

Pulse Crop BNF (kg/ha)

Schoenau (2016)

Lentil 30-120Chickpea 20-100Dry Bean 5-70Faba Bean 80-160

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BNF BY CROP LEGUMES

• BNF by crop legumes is estimated at 20-22 Tg N/yr

• Residue of pulses (chickpea, lentil) has a lower C:N ratio (17) compared with 41 for oilseed and 32 for wheat.

• Thus, pulse in the rotation can impact soil health

1 kg of N fertilizer = 1.25 kg C

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WUE OF SORGHUM FOLLOWING DIFFERENT CROPS IN QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA

Θ at planting sorghum was the lowest in plots previously sown to siratro and lucerne, and the highest in sorghum and mungbean.

Treatment N Fertilizer

WUE (kg grain/ha ×mm)

1995 1996 1997Sorghum 7.0 6.0 4.7

Mungbean 11.2 14.0 10.6

Siratro 10.3 11.8 12.1

Lucerne 9.0 10.5 7.2

Lablab 11.6 12.5 11.2

Desmanthus 11.0 10.3 5.8

LSD (.05) NS 3.7 3.3

Armstrong et al. (1999)

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“Soil biota is the bioengine of the Earth”

There is no such thing as a free biofuel from crop residues.

ECONOMICS OF RESIDUE REMOVAL FOR BIOFUEL

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NO-TILL FARMING AS ANEMERGING GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY

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PIGEON PEA F. SINGH AND D.L. OSWALT (1992) ICRISAT

A stylized pigeonpea plant.

Pigeon pea roots may extend >2m deep, with extensive

development in 60 cm

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http://soilquality.org/indicators/soil_structure.html

SOIL STRUCTURE, ROOTS & GLOMALIN

IT’S NOT DIRT

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

Corn withno residues

Corn with 100% residues

Coschocton, 2012

Residues plowed under No-till with mulch

IMPORTANCE OF SOM & CROP RESIDUES TOSOIL QUALITY & HEALTH

All photos: R. Lal, Coschocton, OH 2012

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Tillage

SOC Pool (Mg/ha, 0-20 cm) C Sequestration

(kg/ha/yr)Initial Final

No-till 32.7 A 37.3 A 657Conventional 29.2 B 33.9 B 671Average 30.9 35.6

Duration = 7 yrs comparison within column

TILLAGE EFFECTS ON SOC POOL IN SETAT, MOROCCO

(BESSAM AND MRABET, 2003)

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

N, P, K, Zn, H2O

Delivering nutrients and water directly to plant’s roots

TOWARDS C-NEUTRAL AGRICULTURE

Chatting with plants

through molecular-

based signalsNo-till Farming

INM

Soil biota and ecosystems services

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

GLOBAL POTENTIAL OF SOC SEQUESTRATION(Pg C/YR)

Cropland: 0.4-1.2

Grazing land: 0.3-0.5

Salt-affected soils: 0.3-0.7

Desertified soils: 0.2-0.7

Total: 1.2-3.1

Lal (2010)

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GLOBAL SOIL ORGANIC CARBON POOL 0-40cm DEPTH

Total Pool = 850 Gt .... Batjes

(1996)

0.4% Increase/yr = 3.6 Gt C/yr

OFF-SETTING OIL BY SOIL C SEQUESTRATION

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SOCIETAL VALUE OF SOC

• Cost of Residue + Nutrients: $120/ MgC• Cost of Nutrients Only : $102/ MgC

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• Animal Power• Rotations

• Sustainableintensification (SI)

• Rhizosphericprocesses

• Disease-suppressivesoils

• Soil-less agriculture

• The nexus approach

• Phytobiome management

• Recarbon-ization of the biosphere

• Nutrition-sensitive agriculture

• SI Restorative Agriculture

• Soil-less agriculture

• Phytobiome management

• Urban

agriculture

• Space farming

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS

• Hand Tools GR

EEN

REV

OLU

TIO

N

Mac

hine

pow

er

Fe

rtiliz

ers

G

erm

plas

m

YEAR

REL

ATIV

E FO

OD

PR

OD

UC

TIO

N (M

g/ha

)

WORLD POPULATION (BILLIONS)

12

8

6

4

1

0.8

1520

1750 1850 1950 1975 2000 2025 20502015

0.8 1 3 4 6 8 9.67.6

C

onse

rvat

ion

agric

ultu

re

Mic

ro-ir

rigat

ion

Pre

cisi

on fa

rmin

g

Per

enni

al c

ultu

re

Com

plex

rota

tions

G

MO

s

Improved cultivars

Biotech-nology

No-till farming

INM

IPM

Carbon sequestration

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Carbon Management and Sequestration Center

2015 - 2024

• Sustainable Intensification• Phytobiome Management• Disease-Suppressive Soils• Urban Farming• Space Agriculture• Recarbonization of the Soil &

Biosphere• The Nexus Approach

The IUSS-Decade of Soil

IUSS

SOIL IN THE 21ST CENTURY

2025 - 2050

• Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture• Pharmaceutical Products• Synthetic Soils• Soils of Extraterrestrial Bodies• Soil Processes & Hypogravity• Pedological Transformations &

Climate ChangeClimate-Resilient Agriculture

IUSS

SOIL IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Extraterrestrial Soils & Agriculture?Hypogravity Pedology?

Sky Farming?Climate & Soil?

Pharmaceuticals?

21ST CENTURY ROAD MAP OF SOIL SCIENCESUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

GOALS