Greenhouse gas balance due to the conversion of sugarcane areas from burned to green harvest, considering other conservationist management practices

Abstract

There is a growing need for all productive sectors to develop greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation techniques to reduce the enhanced greenhouse effect. However, the challenge to the agricultural sector is reducing net emissions while increasing production to meet growing demands for food, fiber, and biofuel. This study focuses on the changes in the GHG balance when sugarcane areas are converted from burned harvest (BH) to green harvest (GH, mechanized harvest), including the changes caused by the adoption of conservationist practices such as reduced tillage and a 4-month crop rotation with Crotalaria juncea L. during sugarcane replanting. Based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2006) methodologies, the annual emission balance includes both agricultural and mobile sources of GHG, according to the mean annual consumption of supplies per hectare. The potential soil carbon accumulation was also considered in the GH plot. The total amounts of GHG were 2651.9 and 2316.4 kg CO 2 eq ha À1 yr À1 for BH and GH, respectively. Factoring in a mean annual soil carbon accumulation rate of 888.1 kg CO 2 ha À1 yr À1 due to the input from long-term crop residues associated with the conversion from BH to GH, the emission balance in GH decreased to 1428.3 kg CO 2 eq ha À1 yr À1. A second decrease occurs when a reduced tillage strategy is adopted instead of conventional tillage during the replanting season in the GH plot, which helps reduce the total emission balance to 1180.3 kg CO 2 eq ha À1 yr À1 .Moreover, the conversion of sugarcane from BH to GH, with the adoption of a crop rotation with Crotalaria juncea L. as well as reduced tillage during sugarcane replanting, would result in a smaller GHG balance of 1064.6 kg CO 2 eq ha À1 yr À1 , providing an effect strategy for GHG mitigation while still providing cleaner sugar and ethanol production in southern Brazil.

Advances in Nutritional Epigenetics—A Fresh Perspective for an Old Idea. Lessons Learned, Limitations, and Future Directions

“…Populational dietary choices also impact the environment, and with that impacts epigenetics. For example, sugar cane production produces 11% of carbon and methane greenhouse gas emissions, 257 contributing to increased methyl group donation and an increase in the prevalence of reduced function MTHFR alleles.…”

Sustainability of soil fertility and the use of lignocellulosic crop harvest residues for the production of biofuels: a literature review

“…[53] In the case of conventional tillage there might also be scope for harvest residue removal without reduction of soil organic carbon stocks if crops are associated Downloaded by [Van Pelt and Opie Library] at 14: 13 19 October 2014 with relatively large amounts of harvest residue per ha, such as sugarcane which generates per harvest 10-20 × 10 6 g of plant litter per ha. [10,[54][55][56][57][58] However, data about soil carbon stocks under sugarcane [2,[54][55][56][57][58] show much variability dependent on local conditions and agricultural practices and would seem presently too limited to provide for proper quantitative guidance about the scope for residue removal from soils under conventional tillage while maintaining soil quality as determined by organic carbon stocks.…”

Understanding the Land Surface Phenology and Gross Primary Production of Sugarcane Plantations by Eddy Flux Measurements, MODIS Images, and Data-Driven Models

“…Gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration (ER), and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) are the major carbon flux components in the terrestrial carbon cycle. The carbon fluxes of sugarcane plantations have large uncertainty across the spatial and temporal scales, driven by climate change [5], agricultural management practices [6][7][8][9][10], and land use change [11,12]. Therefore, there is a need to observe and predict the phenology and carbon fluxes of sugarcane plantations under diverse weather and crop management practices with in situ measurement, remote sensing, and biogeochemical models across various temporal and spatial scales.…”