Lime on farmland might increase greenhouse gas emissions

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-06-07 03:00

New Zealand

PHOTO: Pixabay

A New Zealand study contradicts international research on greenhouse gas emissions from livestock pee. Overseas studies have found that nitrous oxide emissions from urine can potentially be decreased by applying lime to farm soil, which lowers the acidity of the dirt. But Kiwi tests in the field using synthetic urine found it didn’t make a dent in emissions, and experiments in the lab actually resulted in an increase in nitrous oxide emissions. The authors suggest lime is not a useful strategy for reducing agricultural greenhouse gas in the New Zealand context.

Journal/
conference: New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: AgResearch, University of Otago

Funder: This work was funded by the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries through the New Zealand Fund for Global Partnerships in Livestock Emissions Research to support the objectives of the Livestock Research Group of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases and the European Research Area Network Co fund for Monitoring & Mitigation of Green-house gases from Agri- and Silvi-culture (Agreement number: S7-SOW16-ERAGAS-MAGGEpH).SG was also funded through a University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship.

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