Managing plant surplus carbon to generate soil organic matter in regenerative agriculture

Sustainable Agriculture, Soil Health, and Soil Organic Matter

The latter two principles protect the soil resource on which all food and fibre production ultimately depends. However, agricultural production systems differ from ‘natural’ or undeveloped systems in that they can be considered to be ‘leaky’ with respect to nutrients. This is inevitable, due to nutrient removal in harvested product, but inappropriate fertiliser management can exacerbate the ‘le...

Microbial Fuel Cell: A New Alternative Technology to Generate Electricity from Organic Matter

Integrating plant litter quality, soil organic matter stabilization, and the carbon saturation concept.

Labile, 'high-quality', plant litters are hypothesized to promote soil organic matter (SOM) stabilization in mineral soil fractions that are physicochemically protected from rapid mineralization. However, the effect of litter quality on SOM stabilization is inconsistent. High-quality litters, characterized by high N concentrations, low C/N ratios, and low phenol/lignin concentrations, are not c...

Soil organic matter and management of plant-parasitic nematodes.

Organic matter and its replenishment has become a major component of soil health management programs. Many of the soil's physical, chemical, and biological properties are a function of organic matter content and quality. Adding organic matter to soil influences diverse and important biological activities. The diversity and number of free-living and plant-parasitic nematodes are altered by rotat...

Carbon mineralizability determines interactive effects on mineralization of pyrogenic organic matter and soil organic carbon.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a critical and active pool in the global C cycle, and the addition of pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) has been shown to change SOC cycling, increasing or decreasing mineralization rates (often referred to as priming). We adjusted the amount of easily mineralizable C in the soil, through 1-day and 6-month preincubations, and in PyOM made from maple wood at 350 °C, th...