Mulching with pruned fronds promotes the internal soil N cycling and soil fertility in a large-scale oil palm plantation

Formaglio, Greta; Veldkamp, Edzo; Muhammad, Damris; Tjoa, Aiyen; Corre, Marife D.

doi:10.1007/s10533-021-00798-4

Cited by 18 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 71 publications

(124 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Here, we show that soil and root mineral nutrients were unaffected in the initial phase, one year after the start of the experimental treatments. This result agrees with other short-term studies, where management was stopped or reduced [51][52][53] and might have been expected because it is well known that agricultural soil usage has long-lasting legacy effects [54,55]. For example, recovery of N cycling takes almost a decade [56,57].…”

Section: Reduced Management Intensity Does Not Affect Root and Soil Chemistry Or Diversity Of Root-associated Phylasupporting

confidence: 91%

Early Effects of Fertilizer and Herbicide Reduction on Root-Associated Biota in Oil Palm Plantations

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To secure high yield, tropical oil palm plantations are fertilized, and understory vegetation is controlled by chemical clearing with herbicides. These treatments cause a drastic turnover of soil microbes and cause loss of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. Here, we tested if reduced fertilization and weeding instead of conventional treatments restored beneficial ecological groups associated with roots. We conducted our study one year after the start of the reduced management in large-scale oil palm plantations. We hypothesized that reduced fertilizer application and weeding result in shifts of the root-associated species composition because changes in the management regimes affect belowground biomass and nutrients in soil and roots. Alternatively, we hypothesized that the legacy of massive soil fertilization and herbicide application preclude compositional shifts of root-associated biota within short time periods. We did not find any significant treatment effects on root nutrient contents, root biomass, and nutrients in soil. At the level of species (based on operational taxonomic units obtained by Illumina sequencing) or phyla, no significant effects of reduced management were observed. However, distinct functional groups showed early responses to the treatments: nematodes decreased in response to weeding; yeasts and ectomycorrhizal-multitrophic fungi increased under fertilizer treatments; arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi increased under fertilizer reduction. Since the responsive ecological groups were represented by low sequence abundances, their responses were masked by very high sequence abundances of saprotrophic and pathotrophic fungi. Thus, the composition of the whole root-associated community was unaffected by reduced management. In conclusion, our results show that changes in management regimes start to re-wire critical constituents of soil–plant food webs.

show abstract

Section: Reduced Management Intensity Does Not Affect Root and Soil Chemistry Or Diversity Of Root-associated Phylasupporting

confidence: 91%

Early Effects of Fertilizer and Herbicide Reduction on Root-Associated Biota in Oil Palm Plantations

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Seasonal variations in air relative humidity over a time window of 3 days were associated with variations in the decomposer system in plantations, but not in rainforest pointing toward the loss of buffering capacity of the belowground system with the conversion of rainforest into plantations. Reduced buffering in plantations was associated with reduced litter layer opening the perspective for management practices mitigating the reduced buffering capacity of the belowground system, for example, mulching practices (Formaglio et al, 2021 ; Tao et al, 2018 ). Our results further suggest that microorganisms are a sensitive indicator of climatic changes in transformed land uses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reduced buffering in plantations was associated with reduced litter layer opening the perspective for management practices mitigating the reduced buffering capacity of the belowground system, for example, mulching practices (Formaglio et al, 2021;Tao et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land‐use change shifts and magnifies seasonal variations of the decomposer system in lowland tropical landscapes

Krashevska

Stiegler

June

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Deforestation and agricultural expansion in the tropics affect local and regional climatic conditions, leading to synergistic negative impacts on land ecosystems. Climatic changes manifest in increased inter‐ and intraseasonal variations and frequency of extreme climatic events (i.e., droughts and floods), which have evident consequences for aboveground biodiversity. However, until today, there have been no studies on how land use affects seasonal variations below ground in tropical ecosystems, which may be more buffered against climatic variation. Here, we analyzed seasonal variations in soil parameters, basal respiration, microbial communities, and abundances of soil invertebrates along with microclimatic conditions in rainforest and monocultures of oil palm and rubber in Sumatra, Indonesia. About 75% (20 out of 26) of the measured litter and soil, microbial, and animal parameters varied with season, with seasonal changes in 50% of the parameters depending on land use. Land use affected seasonal variations in microbial indicators associated with carbon availability and cycling rate. The magnitude of seasonal variations in microbial parameters in the soil of monocultures was almost 40% higher than in the soil of rainforest. Measured parameters were associated with short‐term climatic conditions (3‐day period air humidity) in plantations, but not in rainforest, confirming a reduced soil buffering ability in plantations. Overall, our findings suggest that land use temporally shifts and increases the magnitude of seasonal variations of the belowground ecosystem compartment, with microbial communities responding most strongly. The increased seasonal variations in soil biota in plantations likely translate into more pronounced fluctuations in essential ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration, and these ramifications ultimately may compromise the stability of tropical ecosystems in the long term. As the observed seasonal dynamics is likely to increase with both local and global climate change, these shifts need closer attention for the long‐term sustainable management of plantation systems in the tropics.

show abstract

“…However, this will probably come at the costs of serious soil degradation, which will likely also affect the productivity of these soils. Management practices should thus be tailored towards increasing organic matter storage, which in turn enhances nutrient recycling (thereby minimizing dependency on large fertilizer inputs; Formaglio et al 2021), erosion resistance (through aggregate stabilization), and water filtration (through recycling of excess nutrients) (Veldkamp et al 2020).…”

Section: Soil Greenhouse Gas Fluxes From the Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil greenhouse gas fluxes from tropical vegetable farms, using forest as a reference

Quiñones

Veldkamp

Lina

et al. 2022

Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Field-based quantification of soil greenhouse gas emissions from the Philippines’ agriculture sector is missing for vegetable production systems, despite its substantial contribution to agricultural production. We quantified soil N2O emission, CH4 uptake, and CO2 efflux in vegetable farms and compared these to the secondary forest. Measurements were conducted for 13 months in 10 smallholder farms and nine forest plots on Andosol soil in Leyte, Philippines using static chambers. Soil N2O and CO2 emissions were higher, whereas CH4 uptake was lower in the vegetable farms than in the forest. Vegetable farms had annual fluxes of 12.7 ± 2.6 kg N2O-N ha−1 yr−1, −1.1 ± 0.2 kg CH4-C ha−1 yr−1, and 11.7 ± 0.7 Mg CO2-C ha−1 yr−1, whereas the forest had 0.10 ± 0.02 kg N2O-N ha ha−1 yr−1, −2.0 ± 0.2 kg CH4-C ha−1 yr−1, and 8.2 ± 0.7 Mg CO2-C ha−1 yr−1. Long-term high N fertilization rates in vegetable farms resulted in large soil mineral N levels, dominated by NO3– in the topsoil and down to 1-m depth, leading to high soil N2O emissions. Increased soil bulk density in the vegetable farms probably increased anaerobic microsites during the wet season and reduced CH4 diffusion from the atmosphere into the soil, resulting in decreased soil CH4 uptake. High soil CO2 emissions from the vegetable farms suggested decomposition of labile organic matter, possibly facilitated by plowing and large N fertilization rates. The global warming potential of these vegetable farms was 31 ± 2.7 Mg CO2-eq ha−1 yr−1 (100-year time frame).

show abstract

Mulching with pruned fronds promotes the internal soil N cycling and soil fertility in a large-scale oil palm plantation

Cited by 18 publications

References 71 publications

Early Effects of Fertilizer and Herbicide Reduction on Root-Associated Biota in Oil Palm Plantations

Early Effects of Fertilizer and Herbicide Reduction on Root-Associated Biota in Oil Palm Plantations

Land‐use change shifts and magnifies seasonal variations of the decomposer system in lowland tropical landscapes

Soil greenhouse gas fluxes from tropical vegetable farms, using forest as a reference

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About