Soil Respiration and Carbon Loss Responses to Cropping Systems Management.

Agricultural fields experience numerous transitory events associated with crop management during the growing season, such as cultivation, fertilization and irrigation. These events can cause rapid changes in the soil environment that can result in soil carbon dioxide emissions that can be several orders of magnitude greater than the typical undisturbed background rates. These high-intensity fluxes from managed agroecosystems have been less studied, and their contribution to carbon dynamics when expanded spatially to account for the agricultural activity occurring in many fields across the landscape is largely unknown.  This study investigated soil carbon fluxes from a long-term conventional till-no till cropping systems experiment at College Station, TX. Results from ths study will be presented at this meeting.