Keeping topsoil is key to trapping carbon on Aussie farms

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-05-30 00:01

Australia; NSW

Image by NT Franklin from Pixabay

An 18-year-long experiment on a NSW farm has shown that the top 30cm of soil stores the bulk of carbon, making it vulnerable to erosion. The researchers wanted to work out if perennial or annual crops, with and without lime treatment, could store more carbon in a common type of Aussie soil, called duplex soil. These soils have clear differences in structure between the topsoil and lower layers. What they found was that the pasture treatments made no real difference to the amount of carbon in the soils, and in all cases, carbon was stored in only the top 30cm of soil. The authors say this means that the carbon stored in the soil may be vulnerable to erosion, and any carbon sequestration efforts must minimise the loss of topsoil.

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Journal/
conference: Crop & Pasture Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: NSW Government

Funder: The project was funded by NSW Department of Primary Industries for 18 years with financial support from Australian Wool Innovation Limited (1991–1997, 2003–2008), Grain Research and Development Corporation (1997–2002); Acid Soil Action, NSW Government Initiative (1997–2003); Meat & Livestock Australia (1994–1997); Land and Water Australia (1994–1997). Incitec-Pivot Pty Ltd and Omya Australia Pty Ltd supplied fertilisers and lime (1992–2010).

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