Wednesday, November 7, 2007
328-10
Short-Term Soil Carbon Dynamics in Mine Soils Reclaimed with Poultry Manure.
Emad Aboukila, Richard Stehouwer, Ashlee Dere, and Kirsten McDonald. Crop and soil science, Penn State University, 116 ASI Building, University Park, PA 16802-3504
Soils contain approximately 75% of the terrestrial carbon (C) pool. Therefore, soils play a major role in the global C cycle. Soil carbon sequestration is very important to the mitigation of increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2. In Pennsylvania excess manure from intensive animal agriculture could be used in coal mine reclamation. Because mine soils are typically very low in organic carbon, they have a significant potential for C sequestration and C trading markets could possibly help to offset reclamation costs. This research investigates the fate of organic C added to mine soil as composted layer manure and as fresh layer manure mixed with paper mill sludge. Experiments were conducted using these amendments in the field and in long-term laboratory incubations. Results demonstrated C mineralization from the fresh manure mixed with paper mill sludge was initially very rapid and more than 10 times greater than from composted layer manure. After one year mineralization rates were similar for both treatments. Mass balance data will be presented to show which treatment resulted in the greatest amount of C retained in the reclaimed mine soil.