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Cited by 379Soil Carbon and Nitrogen DynamicsAgricultural Science and FertilizationSoil Management and Crop Yield

Major limitations to achieving “4 per 1000” increases in soil organic carbon stock in temperate regions: Evidence from long‐term experiments at Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom

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Poulton, Paul, Johnston, Johnny, Macdonald, Andy, White, Rodger, Powlson, David·2018·Global Change Biology
DOI 10.1111/gcb.14066PMC PMC6001646
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Abstract

We evaluated the “4 per 1000” initiative for increasing soil organic carbon ( SOC ) by analysing rates of SOC increase in treatments in 16 long‐term experiments in southeast United Kingdom. The initiative sets a goal for SOC stock to increase by 4‰ per year in the 0–40 cm soil depth, continued over 20 years. Our experiments, on three soil types, provided 114 treatment comparisons over 7–157 years. Treatments included organic additions (incorporated by inversion ploughing), N fertilizers, introducing pasture leys into continuous arable systems, and converting arable land to woodland. In 65% of cases, SOC increases occurred at >7‰ per year in the 0–23 cm depth, approximately equivalent to 4‰ per year in the 0–40 cm depth. In the two longest running experiments (>150 years), annual farmyard manure ( FYM ) applications at 35 t fresh material per hectare (equivalent to approx. 3.2 t organic C/ha/year) gave SOC increases of 18‰ and 43‰ per year in the 23 cm depth during the first 20 years. Increases exceeding 7‰ per year continued for 40–60 years. In other experiments, with FYM applied at lower rates or not every year, there were increases of 3‰–8‰ per year over several decades. Other treatments gave increases between zero and 19‰ per year over various periods. We conclude that there are severe limitations to achieving the “4 per 1000” goal in practical agriculture over large areas. The reasons include (1) farmers not having the necessary resources (e.g. insufficient manure); (2) some, though not all, practices favouring SOC already widely adopted; (3) practices uneconomic for farmers—potentially overcome by changes in regulations or subsidies; (4) practices undesirable for global food security. We suggest it is more realistic to promote practices for increasing SOC based on improving soil quality and functioning as small increases can have disproportionately large beneficial impacts, though not necessarily translating into increased crop yield.

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  • The rate of SOC sequestration decreases as SOC approaches the maximum or effective storage capacity.

    “Most critically, the concept of sink saturation suggests not only a limited storage capacity but also that the rate of SOC sequestration decreases as SOC approaches the maximum or effective storage capacity (Poulton et al., 2018; Stewart et al., 2007).”

    From Carbon for soils, not soils for carbon (2023) · cites this paper as Poulton et al., 2018

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Authors
Poulton, P., Johnston, J., Macdonald, A., White, R., & Powlson, D.
Affiliations
Rothamsted Research (GB)
Corresponding author
Powlson, David
ORCID
Venue
Global Change Biology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2018-02-28
Volume
24
Issue
6
Pages
2563-2584
ISSN
  • 1354-1013 (ISSN-L)
  • 1365-2486
DOI
10.1111/gcb.14066
PMC
PMC6001646
OpenAlex
W2793716918
Cited by
379
References
1
Citations by year
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FWCI
37.18
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Global Change Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Rothamsted Repository (Rothamsted Repository) (submittedVersion)
  • Rothamsted Repository (Rothamsted Repository) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBS/E/C/000J0300)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Agricultural Science and Fertilization
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Management and Crop Yield
Keywords
4 per 1000 initiative, soil organic carbon, soil carbon sequestration, long-term field experiment, farmyard manure, organic amendments, nitrogen fertilization, ploughing, temperate agriculture, soil quality, food security, agricultural policy
MeSH terms
Agriculture, Carbon, England, Soil, Carbon Sequestration

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

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