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Strategic Management of Grazing Grassland Systems to Maintain and Increase Organic Carbon in Soils
Date Issued
13 March 2019
Date Available
25T12:55:11Z March 2019
Abstract
Understanding management-induced C sequestration potential in soils under agriculture, forestry, and other land use systems and their quantification to offset increasing greenhouse gases are of global concern. This chapter reviews management-induced changes in C storage in soils of grazing grassland systems, their impacts on ecosystem functions, and their adaptability and needs of protection across socio-economic and cultural settings. In general, improved management of grassland/pasture such as manuring/slurry application, liming and rotational grazing, and low to medium livestock units could sequester C more than under high intensity grazing conditions. Converting cultivated land to pasture, restoration of degraded land, and maximizing pasture phases in mixed-cropping, pasture with mixed-livestock, integrated forestry-pasturage of livestock (silvopastoral) and crop-forestry-pasturage of livestock (agro-silvopastoral) systems could also maintain and enhance soil organic C density (SOCρ). In areas receiving low precipitation and having high erodibility, grazing exclusion might restore degraded grasslands and increase SOCρ. Yet, optimizing C sequestration rates, sowing of more productive grass varieties, judicial inorganic and organic fertilization, rotational grazing, and other climate-resilient approaches could improve overall farm productivity and profitability and attain sustainability in livestock farming systems.
Sponsorship
Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Environmental Protection Agency
Type of Material
Book Chapter
Publisher
IntechOpen
Copyright (Published Version)
2019 the Authors
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
Part of
Frazão LA. (eds.). CO2 Sequestration
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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Name
Book Chapter SOC_IntechOpen_Khalil et al. 2019.pdf
Size
1.08 MB
Format
Owning collection
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