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New research shows practices from the past will be key to future soil
carbon solutions
By Stacy Nick, Colorado State University
May 19, 2023
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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Sometimes to go forward, you must go back.
A new study from Colorado State University's Department of Soil and
Crop Sciences and and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology found
that regenerative practices—including integrating crop and livestock
systems—were successful as long-term carbon storage solutions.
The paper, "Restoring particulate and mineral-associated organic
carbon through regenerative agriculture," was recently published in Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The study was led by ecology Ph.D. candidate Aaron Prairie, along with
two co-authors: research scientist Alison King and M. Francesca
Cotrufo, professor of soil and crop sciences and Prairie's advisor.
Their research presented a global systemic meta-analysis looking
beyond the impact of regenerative agricultural practices on total soil
organic carbon (SOC) alone, instead looking at two main pools.
Not all soil carbon is created equally
The regeneration of SOC in agricultural soils is one of the most
realizable, nature-based solutions available to mitigate global
warming and sustain food productivity for the future. Over the
past two years, Prairie looked at studies featuring experiments
analyzing the effects of regenerative agricultural practices compared
to conventional or control practices and how these different practices
increase SOC. Rather than just looking at total soil organic carbon,
he broke it up into particulate organic carbon (POC) and
mineral-associated organic
carbon (MAOC).
"That's important because they behave very differently in soil," said
Prairie, noting that POC cycles faster, creating different
implications for management and carbon sequestration.
Cotrufo first demonstrated that two functionally different pools of
carbon are formed
through different processes and her former Ph.D. student,
Katherine Rocci, showed they respond
differently to global changes.
"This analysis is the first one to demonstrate the differential impact
of regenerative practices on both the particulate organic matter and
the mineral associated organic matter," Cotrufo said. "There has been
meta-analysis before, but on a small subset of management, and only
looking at the total carbon. We found that if we study POC and MAOC
separately, we can better inform management about what different
conditions promote better outcomes."
A confirmation of regenerative agriculture
One of the most important findings Cotrufo noted is that regenerative
practices have an overall positive impact on SOC pools.
"There are a lot of nuances and variables across the studies that need
further research," she said. "But it's a big call for agriculture to
move towards a regenerative management model."
Especially when these practices are combined, Prairie noted.
"We know that they all work individually, but this study also showed
the huge potential for the stacked effects even more," he said.
Decades ago, to increase productivity and lower production costs, the
industry largely separated animal production from crop
production, focusing on specialization.
"We have increased productivity, but that has come at a huge cost to
the environment," Cotrufo said.
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The study showed tremendous potential to greatly increase SOC pools
through synergistic interactions between multiple practices, such as
polyculture farming, cover cropping, integrated crop-livestock systems
and even tillage.
While helpful for plant
growth, conventional tillage can also lead to erosion and loss of
soil nutrients. But when other regenerative practices are in place,
it's possible, Prairie said.
"Tillage has a much less negative effect on soil carbon if you are
doing things like cover crops and polyculture and other sorts of
regenerative practices," he said.
Patience
Another finding is that like all good things, increasing SOC takes
time.
Prairie said his analysis shows that impacts from regenerative
practices don't begin showing up in terms of soil carbon until
approximately six years after implementation.
That's a problem because most SOC programs—including carbon markets,
which allow farmers and ranchers to sell "carbon credits" equal to the
amount of carbon dioxide their land has sequestered—quantify SOC
change in a five-year-timeline. which means they aren't going to
capture this benefit of regenerative agriculture.
"You have to set the system in motion for plants, microbes and soil
minerals to work to regain that organic matter," Cotrufo said. "It's
not a quick fix."
Looking to the past for agriculture's future
This type of integrated management model was typical before the
industrialization of agriculture, Cotrufo said. The farmers in the
1800s and early 1900s had small operations that were diversified. Some
producers are returning to that model and demonstrating how that can
be effective in regenerating soil carbon
today.
This analysis opens the door to looking at regenerative agriculture in
new ways, Prairie said.
"It shows that there's a lot that we don't understand about specific
mechanisms of carbon formation and that more research needs to be done
into the combination of these different practices and their
viability," he said.
From there, targeted interventions at a regional scale would be
possible to further research why a specific combination of cover crops
works better than another, or why a specific timing or variety garners
improved results.
"This paper shows that regenerative integration and regenerative
principles definitely work," Cotrufo said. "Optimizing them for
context is where we need to work next."
Cotrufo also noted that this is the first time during her career that
she's had a Ph.D. student's work published in PNAS,
a fact that's made even more notable because the two-year data project
required Prairie to learn data analysis on the job.
The dataset will also be part of a new modeling consortium, allowing
the data collected to live beyond this project.
"There was a big learning curve to decipher how to structure the data,
the best way to skim papers," Prairie said. "If you don't have a
framework to start with, it feels daunting. But looking at it now,
it's very rewarding for me, especially because so much work went into
this, and I want it to be used beyond this study; I want it to be
useful."
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