Silvopastoral systems improve carbon stocks at livestock ranches in Tabasco, Mexico

Abstract

Silvopastoral systems have great potential for storing carbon because of carbon assimilation in tree woody biomass, carbon input through litterfall and below‐ground carbon turnover. In this study, we quantified and compared the carbon stocks at livestock ranches in Tabasco, Mexico, containing either scattered trees in grazing pastures (STP) or grass monocultures. Sampling plots were randomly established at each ranch where the above‐ and below‐ground carbon stocks, carbon input from litterfall, grass production and arboreal biomass growth were measured. We found that silvopastoral systems stored an average of 257.45 Mg ha−1 of soil organic carbon (SOC) compared to 119.17 Mg SOC ha−1 at grass monoculture ranches (to 30 cm depth); silvopastoral systems also stored 44.64 Mg C ha−1 in wood biomass; and, grass monocultures had greater cumulative grass biomass production. Overall, it is concluded that livestock ranches in Tabasco, Mexico, with scattered trees in grazing pastures stored 58.8% more carbon than those grass monocultures, with carbon stocks of 327.01 Mg C ha−1and 134.47 Mg C ha−1, respectively. The results are useful for land management decision making for sustainable livestock systems framed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The difference in soil organic carbon distribution between natural and planted forests: A case study on stony soils mountainous area in the Upper Min River Arid Valley, China

“…Yang et al, 2009); further, they observed that natural forests were rich in SOC fractions, including mineralfree particulate SOC, intra-macro-aggregate SOC, free humus carbon, and light fraction organic carbon. (4) Total SOC stocks were positively correlated with soil thickness and negatively correlated with RFC (Figure 5b; Antony et al, 2022;Valenzuela Que et al, 2022). In this study area, native forests and shrubs with higher RFC (>49.2%) had 30 cm soil thickness, while eco-forests and orchards with lower RFC (26.9%-39.5%) had 60 cm soil thickness (Table 1), leading to higher total SOC stocks in orchards and eco-forests than in natural forests and shrubs.…”

Role of biochar toward carbon neutrality

“…Recent attempts have been made to reduce organic carbon loss from soils for climate change mitigation, whose measures include crop residue incorporation (Lupwayi et al 2022;Zhu et al 2022a), organic matter stabilization with clay and metal oxides (Baumann et al 2022;Di et al 2022), fertilizer application (da Silva et al 2022;Gasser et al 2022;Qiu et al 2022;Thakur et al 2022;Zhang et al 2022b), reduced or conservational tillage (Ferrara et al 2022;He et al 2022a;Islam et al 2022), rotational grazing (Abdalla et al 2022;Dong et al 2021), silvopastoral system (Aryal et al 2019;Valenzuela Que et al 2022), and ecological restoration (Howson et al 2022;Wang et al 2020b;Zhao et al 2022). Among them, application of biochar is a promising one due to simultaneous achievement of waste management, nutrient delivery, contaminant immobilization, and climate change mitigation.…”