ANNOUNCEMENTS
Carbon sequestration is known to the potential win -win strategy, as it is an option to mitigate the climate change as well as the solution to soil degradation problem by decreasing the C concentration in atmosphere and increasing the organic carbon in soil and which in turn increase soil fertility. This report explains the need of Carbon sequestration focusing on semi arid regions. It describes different management practices, and cropping pattern which increase the carbon sequestration potential in soil. These practices are found to be: no tillage, crop residue application, organic manure addition, crop rotation, fallowing and stubble grazing etc.
A simulation study was also conducted for Kothapally village, under different management practices (referred as 8 scenarios in the report) and best management practices was identified. The results were also extrapolated for Kothapally to assess the effects of management practice and cropping pattern. The crop and the duration for which model has simulated was Pigeon pea and 30 years respectively. The model used was CENTURY model (version 5) initially developed by W J Parton et al. (1987) for temperate regions.
The result of simulation study has shown that there is a significant increase in SOC from initial to final SOC under 4 scenarios: no tillage practice, low intensity grazing, double organic manure addition (including vermicompost) substituting inorganic fertilizer and the fourth scenario include all the improved practices. The century model has also simulated the N in soil organic matter. The trend for N is also in correspondence with the SOC but not completely. The inter-annual variability is difficult to explain as data for initialization were not sufficient. Two landform systems Flat and BBF landform system were also compared for the ICRISAT campus. Simulation result showed that BBF system is more efficient in sequestering carbon in soil than Flats system. From the result it can be predicted that how much carbon would be sequestered in 30 years under different agricultural practices, which will help in formulation of strategies for the future.
Keywords: Soil degradation, Carbon sequestration, simulation, CENTURY model
