The USDA-Agricultural Research Service’s Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory (NPARL) final BrownBagger presentation for 2013 is set for this Friday, April 5, from noon to 1 pm. It features NPARL Soil Scientist Upendra Sainju, who will discuss “Life-cycle assessment of dryland greenhouse gas emissions affected by cropping sequence and nitrogen fertilization.”
In particular, Dr. Sainju will look at dryland malt barley production, including the various management options used for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, soil C sequestration, and dryland malt barley yield and quality and the best options he found to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions while still maintaining grain yield and quality.
Traditional dryland farming practices for malt barley include conventional tillage, alternate-year fallow, and high nitrogen fertilization rates, all of which can generate substantial amounts of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane), according to Sainju. Furthermore, additional carbon dioxide is also generated from fuel used by farm machines for tillage, fertilization, herbicide and pesticide applications and harvest, as well as from machines used by industry for nitrogen fertilizer production and application.
On the plus side, atmospheric carbon dioxide can be stored as soil organic matter through plant fixation and returning the residue back to the soil, he noted.
To harness that ability, Dr. Sainju’s research looked at the effects of traditional and improved management techniques, including no-tillage and crop rotation with or without nitrogen fertilization in greenhouse gas emissions under dryland malt barley production from 2008 to 2011 in eastern Montana. He calculated net greenhouse gas emissions from various management techniques by taking into account all greenhouse gas sources (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, farm operations, and nitrogen fertilization) and sinks (crop residue returned to the soil and carbon sequestration) which remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Find out Friday which malt barley production system most effectively lowered net greenhouse gas emissions in the study, while also maintaining comparable malt barley yields and quality.
The talk is open to the public, so please join us this Friday from noon to 1 pm in NPARL’s Technology Transfer Room for this insight into agricultural impacts on and solutions for greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The lab is located at 1500 N. Central Avenue in Sidney, MT.
For more information, contact Beth Redlin at 406-433-9427.
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