Evaluating Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Carbon Sequestration from Rice Production in Eastern Arkansas Using Comet-FarmTM.

COMET-Farm^TM is an integrated web-based decision support tool developed in collaboration with and support from the NRCS and USDA to aid farmers, agricultural producers, natural resource professionals, land managers and conservationists in making land and livestock management decisions regarding greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration. COMET-Farm^TM provides total farm, ranch and woodlot greenhouse gas accounting, including cropland, pasture, range, agroforestry, forestry, livestock and on-farm/ranch energy use modules. Biomass and soil carbon; CO₂ emissions from liming, urea fertilization and drained organic soils; CO from biomass burning; N₂O from soil, wetland rice cultivation, biomass burning and drained organic soils; and CH₄ from soil, wetland rice cultivation and biomass burning are accounted for in the tool using the methods described in the USDA document, Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Agriculture and Forestry: Methods for Entity-Scale Inventory. Calculations are done to estimate past, present and future emissions for user designed and selected management scenarios.  Agricultural soil management is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sector. Applying conservation practices can greatly reduce the amount of greenhouse gas released into the environment and aid in building and storing soil carbon. COMET-Farm^TM allows rapid assessment of conservation scenarios to aid in conservation planning. To showcase the tools capabilities, conservation scenarios are contrasted in real-world rice production systems in eastern Arkansas, demonstrating how on-farm practices influence the greenhouse gas flux from rice production systems.