Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration and Crop Production in China
Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration and Crop Production in China
Date : 17 Feb 2014
Time : 12 noon – 1 pm
Venue : Meeting Room, Graham Centre, Pugsley Place, Wagga Wagga
Presenter : Professor Minggang Xu Visiting Professor of Endeavour Scholar of CSU Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, P. R. China
Abstract
This presentation will give a brief introduction of the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and the long-term experiments (LTEs) for soil-fertilisers in arable land of China. The LTEs consist of 50 sites distributed across major crop production areas (rice, wheat and maize) of China, with various agro-eco-systems. The LTES started during the 1980s with different fertilisations, including no fertilisation, chemical fertilisers, manure and chemical fertilisers plus manure.
Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) or soil organic matter is the basis and core of soil fertility. The results of LTEs show that SOC content can be significantly accumulated under long-term manure application or combined with chemical fertiliser, and the increase in SOC content can improve soil fertility and thus enhance crop yield. There is a close correlation between the average grain yield in normal years and SOC content in cropland in the major grain-producing areas. The results also indicate that manure application alone can produce the equivalent high yield with chemical fertilisers when the soil fertility is high enough, which is very important for organic agriculture both in China and the World.
SOC usually shows a linear increase with organic carbon input in upland China. From the relationship, the two major factors, Conversion coefficient of C input (Cf) and C input to maintain SOC (Cm) for different agro-eco-systems are calculated. The relations and the two factors are principle to increase SOC and can be used to guide farmers to apply manure and straw to improve soil fertility for sustainable agriculture. The future research and possible collaborations with Graham Centre are discussed.
Professor Minggang Xu - Professional Summary
Professor Minggang Xu is an outstanding mid-career soil scientist focusing on the improvement of soil fertility and crop productivity in Chinese agricultural systems. Since 2009 he has been the Deputy Director General of the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), with his primary responsibilities being the management of research programs and scientific exchange, and overseeing 50 long-term soil-fertilisation experimental sites across arable land in China. He is a professional leader in Chinese Soil Science, leading several programs for soil fertility improvement and sustainable crop production in China. He also is involved in collaborative projects with Australia, USA, UK and Japan, for pasture and forage management, soil and fertilisers option utilisation and new technology for protection of the environment and high crop yields.