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Machmuller MB, Kramer MG, Cyle TK, et al. Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter. Nat Commun. 2015;6:6995doi: 10.1038/ncomms7995.
Machmuller, M. B., Kramer, M. G., Cyle, T. K., Hill, N., Hancock, D., & Thompson, A. (2015). Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter. Nature communications, 66995. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7995
Machmuller, Megan B, et al. "Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter." Nature communications vol. 6 (2015): 6995. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7995
Machmuller MB, Kramer MG, Cyle TK, Hill N, Hancock D, Thompson A. Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter. Nat Commun. 2015 Apr 30;6:6995. doi: 10.1038/ncomms7995. PMID: 25925997.
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Nat Commun. 2015 Apr 30;6:6995. doi: 10.1038/ncomms7995.

Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter.

Nature communications

Megan B Machmuller, Marc G Kramer, Taylor K Cyle, Nick Hill, Dennis Hancock, Aaron Thompson

Affiliations

  1. Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
  2. Soil and Water Science, University of Florida Gainesville, Florida, USA.
  3. Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.

PMID: 25925997 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7995

Abstract

The loss of organic matter from agricultural lands constrains our ability to sustainably feed a growing population and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Addressing these challenges requires land use activities that accumulate soil carbon (C) while contributing to food production. In a region of extensive soil degradation in the southeastern United States, we evaluated soil C accumulation for 3 years across a 7-year chronosequence of three farms converted to management-intensive grazing. Here we show that these farms accumulated C at 8.0 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1), increasing cation exchange and water holding capacity by 95% and 34%, respectively. Thus, within a decade of management-intensive grazing practices soil C levels returned to those of native forest soils, and likely decreased fertilizer and irrigation demands. Emerging land uses, such as management-intensive grazing, may offer a rare win-win strategy combining profitable food production with rapid improvement of soil quality and short-term climate mitigation through soil C-accumulation.

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