Influence of conservation tillage on Greenhouse gas fluxes and crop productivity in spring-wheat agroecosystems on the Loess Plateau of China

The effects of climate change such as dry spells, floods and erosion heavily impact agriculture especially smallholder systems on the Northwestern Loess Plateau of China. Nonetheless agriculture also contributes to global warming through the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O. Yet this complex conundrum can be alleviated and mitigated through sound soil and water management practices. Despite considerable literature on Conservation Agriculture (CA) as a strategy to improve the resilience and mitigation capacity of agroecosystems, there is still paucity of information on the impacts of CA on crop production and environmental quality on the Plateau. In order to fill this gap this study examined the effects of no-till and straw mulch on crop productivity and greenhouse gas fluxes in agroecosystems on the Plateau where farmers’ common practice of conventional tillage (CT) was tested against three CA practices: conventional tillage with straw mulch (CTS), no-till (NT) and no-till with straw mulch (NTS). The results indicated that all three CA practices (CTS, NT and NTS) markedly increased soil water content (SWC), soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) but reduced soil temperature (ST). Average grain yields were 854.46 ± 76.51, 699.30 ± 133.52 and 908.18±38.64 kg ha⁻¹ respectively under CTS, NT and NTS indicating an increase by approximately 33%, 9% and 41% respectively compared with CT (644.61 ± 76.98 kg ha⁻¹). There were significant (p < 0.05) reductions of Net CO₂ emissions under NT (7.37 ± 0.89 tCO2e ha⁻¹y⁻¹) and NTS (6.65 ± 0.73 tCO2e ha⁻¹y⁻¹) compared with CTS (10.65 ± 0.18 tCO2e ha⁻¹y⁻¹) and CT (11.14 ± 0.58 tCO2e ha⁻¹y⁻¹). All the treatments served as sinks of CH₄but NTS had the highest absorption capacity (−0.27 ± 0.024 tCO2e ha⁻¹y⁻¹) and increased absorption significantly (p < 0.05) compared with CT (−0.21 ± 0.017 tCO2e ha⁻¹y⁻¹); however, CA did not reduce emissions of N₂O. These had an influence on Global warming potential (GWP) as NT and NTS resulted in significant reduction in net GWP. Grain yield was significantly correlated positively with SOC and STN (p < 0.05); ecosystem respiration was also significantly correlated with SWC and ST while CH₄ flux was highly correlated with ST (p < 0.001). Crop yield and GHG responses to CA were controlled by soil hydrothermal and nutrient changes, thus improving these conditions through adoption of sustainable soil moisture improvement practices such as no-till, straw mulch, green manuring, contour ploughing and terracing can improve crop resilience to climate change and reduce GHG emissions in arid and semi-arid regions.