Soil Health and Environmental Management for Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems

1
Carbon Management and
Sequestration Center
Soil Health and Environmental Management for
Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems
Rattan Lal
Carbon Management and Sequestration Center
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio

2
-38
18,000 BC6,000 BC 14,000 BC10,000 BC2,000 BCAD 2,000
-42
-40
-36
-34
Warm
& Wet
Cold
& Dry
δ18(0%)
8,000 BC
Beginning of
Agriculture
1750
Industrial
Revolution
EARTH’S HISTORIC TEMPERATURE
AND THE EVOLUTION OF AGRICULTURE
(Fagan, 2004)
Time
THE LONG SUMMER
Anthropocene

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THE ANTHROPOGENIC
DRIVER
I = P x A x T
P = Population
A = Affluence
T = Technology
Over the last
10,000 years, the
number of humans
has increased about
a thousand-fold from
2- 20 million to
7.3 billion.
1.0
1800
1.3
1850
1.7
1900 1.8
1910 1.9
1920
2.1
1930
2.3
1940
2.5
1950
3.0
1960
3.7
1970
4.4
19805.3
1990
6.1
2000
7.0
2011
7.5
2020
8.1
2030
8.6
2040
9.7
2050
11.2
2100

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People living in water-stressed
river basins:
2000 = 2.3 bn
2025 = 3.5 bn
Scarce Water Resources:
Ogalalla, IGP, NCP, etc.
HUMAN-ECOSYSTEM INTERACTIONS
Population
2015 – 7.3B
2050 – 9.7B
2100 – 11.2B
Soil Erosion
Water = 1.1Bha
Wind = 0.55Bha
Secondary
Salinization
20% of all irrigated lands
Algal Blooms
Regions: Great Lakes, Gulf of
Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, Lake
Taihu in China, Baltic Sea etc.
Loss of Agric. Land to
Sealing and Urbanization
By 2030, global urban land cover
will increase by 152 Mha or 10% of
current arable land area
Loss of Biodiversity
1000 to 10,000 sp./yr,
background rate of 5 sp./yr
Tropical Deforestation
1990s = 8 Mha/yr
2000s = 7.6 Mha/yr
A region equivalent to Sri Lanka
Loss of Terrestrial
C Pool
Land Use = 486 Pg
Soil = 78 Pg
www.nrcs.usda.govwww.soils4teachers.orgLal (2015)
thewatchers.adorraeli.comwww.emaze.comwww.sustainableworks.org

5
THE RESOURCES USED FOR AGRICULTURE
• 38% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface is used for agriculture,
• 75% of agricultural land (3.73 Bha) is allocated to raising animals,
• 70% of the global freshwater withdrawals are used for irrigation,
• 30-35% of global greenhouse gas emissions are contributed by
agriculture,
And yet 1 in 7 persons is food-insecure
and 2-3 in 7 are malnourished.

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MEETING FOOD DEMAND BY 2050
The world produces enough food to feed 10 billion people . Thus,
food and nutritional security must be achieved by:
• Reducing waste (30-50%),
• Increasing access to food by addressing poverty, inequality, wars
and political instability,
• Improving distribution,
• Increasing use of pulses and plant-based diet,
• Accepting personal responsibility of not taking things for granted,
and
• Increasing agronomic productivity from existing land, restoring
degraded lands, enhancing BNF by legumes and converting some
agricultural land for nature conservancy without any conversion of
natural land to agro-ecosystems,through sustainable
intensification
sustainable intensification

7
Resilience of Soil-Ecological Systems
It has multiple regimes (stable states) which are separated by thresholds
Thresholds
Critical
Threshold
The
current
state of
the
system
Possible states in which the
system can still have the
same function
Irreversible
Degradation
Resilience
Regime Shift

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• Extractive Farming/Subsistence
• Depletion of SOC and Nutrients
• Decline in Soil Structure
• Loss of Soil Resilience
• Decline in Ecosystem
Functions and Services
• Loss of Soil biodiversity
• Disruption of Key Processes
• Hunger
• Malnutrition
• Political Unrest
• Civil Strife
• War and insecurity
• The Migrant Crisis
Severe Degradation
THE REGIME SHIFT BY
EXTRACTIVE FARMING

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• Replace what is removed,
• Respond wisely to what is changed, and
• Predict what will happen from anthropogenic and
natural perturbations
SUSTAINABLE SOIL MANAGEMENT

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The strategy is to produce more crops:
• from less land,
• per drop of water,
• per unit input of fertilizers
and pesticides,
• per unit of energy, and
• per unit of C emission.
Produce more
from less
SUSTAINABLE INTENSIFICATION

11
MOST IMPORTANT THINGS CANNOT BE MEASURED
BUT MUST BE MANAGED (Edward Demmings)
Therefore, question is not "What is there in
the soil that can be measured, but what it
does which must be quantified "?
&
What it does is "soil quality".

12
SOIL QUALITY
Soil quality is a journey and not a destination,
Because a destination keeps changing with
demands of each generation.

13
“The first step in the science of agriculture is the recognition
of soils and of how to distinguish that which is of good quality
and that which is of inferior quality. He who does not possess
this knowledge lacks the first principles and deserves to be
regarded as ignorant”.
(Vol. 1, p. 23)
“One must also take into consideration the depth of the soil,
for it often happens that its surface layer may be black.”
(Vol. 1, p. 336)
a Moorish Philosopher wrote in the
“Book on Agriculture” during the 12th century:
KITAB-AL-FELAHA

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PULSES &
SDGS
• Soil restoration
• Human Nutrition
• Climate Mitigation
Chemical
• Recycling nutrients
• Soil pH
• CEC
• Elemental balance
Biological
• BNF
• MBC
• SOC
• Disease-
suppressive soils
• Soil enzymes
• Biodiversity
(earthworms)
Physical
Improving:
• Aggregation (glomalin)
• Porosity
• Tilth (biopores)
• Aeration Soil
Health

15
BNF BY PULSE CROPS
• 50-80% of N uptake in legumes comes from BNF.
Pulse Crop BNF (kg/ha)
Schoenau (2016)
Lentil 30-120
Chickpea 20-100
Dry Bean 5-70
Faba Bean 80-160

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BNF BY CROP LEGUMES
• BNF by crop legumes is estimated at 20-22 Tg N/yr
• Residue of pulses (chickpea, lentil) has a lower C:N ratio (17)
compared with 41 for oilseed and 32 for wheat.
• Thus, pulse in the rotation can impact soil health

17
WUE OF SORGHUM FOLLOWING DIFFERENT CROPS IN
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
Θ at planting sorghum was the lowest in plots previously sown to siratro and lucerne,
and the highest in sorghum and mungbean.
Treatment N
Fertilizer
WUE (kg grain/ha ×mm)
1995 1996 1997
Sorghum 7.0 6.0 4.7
Mungbean 11.2 14.0 10.6
Siratro 10.3 11.8 12.1
Lucerne 9.0 10.5 7.2
Lablab 11.6 12.5 11.2
Desmanthus 11.0 10.3 5.8
LSD (.05) NS 3.7 3.3
Armstrong et al. (1999)

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“Soil biota is the bioengine of the Earth”
There is no such thing as a free biofuel from
crop residues.
ECONOMICS OF RESIDUE REMOVAL FOR BIOFUEL

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NO-TILL FARMING AS AN
EMERGING GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY

20
PIGEON PEA
F. SINGH AND D.L. OSWALT (1992) ICRISAT
A stylized pigeonpea plant.
Pigeon pea roots may extend
>2m deep, with extensive
development in 60 cm

21
http://soilquality.org/indicators/soil_structure.html
SOIL STRUCTURE, ROOTS & GLOMALIN

22
Corn with
no residues
Corn with
100% residues
Coschocton, 2012
Residues plowed under No-till with mulch
IMPORTANCE OF SOM & CROP RESIDUES TO
SOIL QUALITY & HEALTH
All photos: R. Lal, Coschocton, OH 2012

23
Tillage
SOC Pool
(Mg/ha, 0-20 cm) C Sequestration
(kg/ha/yr)Initial Final
No-till 32.7 A 37.3 A 657
Conventional 29.2 B 33.9 B 671
Average 30.9 35.6
Duration = 7 yrs comparison within column
TILLAGE EFFECTS ON SOC POOL IN SETAT, MOROCCO
(BESSAM AND MRABET, 2003)

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N, P, K, Zn, H2O
TOWARDS C-
NEUTRAL
AGRICULTURE
Chatting
with plants
through
molecular-
based
signals
No-till Farming
INM
Soil biota and
ecosystems services

25
GLOBAL POTENTIAL OF SOC SEQUESTRATION
(Pg C/YR)
Cropland: 0.4-1.2
Grazing land: 0.3-0.5
Salt-affected
soils:
0.3-0.7
Desertified soils: 0.2-0.7
Total: 1.2-3.1
Lal (2010)

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GLOBAL SOIL ORGANIC CARBON POOL 0-40cm DEPTH
Total Pool = 850 Gt .... Batjes (1996)
0.4% Increase/yr = 3.6 Gt C/yr
OFF-SETTING OIL BY SOIL C SEQUESTRATION

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SOCIETAL VALUE OF SOC
• Cost of Residue + Nutrients: $120/ MgC
• Cost of Nutrients Only : $102/ MgC

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• Animal Power
• Rotations
• Sustainable
intensification
(SI)
• Rhizospheric
processes
• Disease-
suppressive
soils
• Soil-less
agriculture
• The nexus
approach
• Phytobiome
management
• Recarbon-
ization of
the
biosphere
• Nutrition-
sensitive
agriculture
• SI
Restorative
Agriculture
• Soil-less
agriculture
• Phytobiome
management
• Urban
agriculture
• Space
farming
TECHNOLOGICAL
INNOVATIONS
• Hand Tools
GREENREVOLUTION
Machinepower
FertilizersGermplasm
YEAR
RELATIVEFOODPRODUCTION(Mg/ha)
WORLD POPULATION (BILLIONS)
12
8
6
4
1
0.8
15
20
1750 1850 1950 1975 2000 2025 20502015
0.8 1 3 4 6 8 9.67.6
ConservationagricultureMicro-irrigation
PrecisionfarmingPerennialculture
ComplexrotationsGMOs
 Improved
cultivars
 Biotech-
nology
 No-till
farming
 INM
 IPM
 Carbon
sequestration

29
2015 - 2024
• Sustainable Intensification
• Phytobiome Management
• Disease-Suppressive Soils
• Urban Farming
• Space Agriculture
• Recarbonization of the Soil &
Biosphere
• The Nexus Approach
2025 - 2050
• Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture
• Pharmaceutical Products
• Synthetic Soils
• Soils of Extraterrestrial Bodies
• Soil Processes & Hypogravity
• Pedological Transformations &
Climate Change
Extraterrestrial Soils & Agriculture?
Hypogravity Pedology?
Sky Farming?
Climate & Soil?
Pharmaceuticals?

Soil Health and Environmental Management for Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems

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