Adaptive multi-paddock grazing increases soil carbon stocks and decreases the carbon footprint of beef production in Ontario, Canada.

Adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing has been promoted to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks over continuously grazed (CG) pastures; however, the evidence for this is still limited, both in terms of the number of studies conducted and the climates and biomes they cover. The objectives of this study were to determine the effect of grazing management on pasture SOC stocks and to incorporate this SOC sequestration into a life cycle assessment on the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity (or carbon footprint) of Ontario beef production. Soil cores collected from AMP and CG pastures and annual row crop fields in southern Ontario showed that pastures managed with AMP grazing had significantly higher SOC stocks than CG pastures.

Improved nitrogen fertilizer management reduces nitrous oxide emissions in a northern Prairie cropland.

Arable croplands are a significant source of nitrous oxide (NO) emissions, largely due to nitrogen (N) fertilizer applications to support crop production. Nevertheless, there is limited research on the NO dynamics from canola-wheat rotations in the semi-arid northern Prairies, an important agricultural region. Here, we present micrometeorological NO fluxes measured from January 2021 to April 2024 in Saskatchewan, Canada, to evaluate the impact of N fertilizer management on the year-round NO emissions from a canola-wheat rotation.

Fugitive methane emissions from two agricultural biogas plants.

This study quantified fugitive methane (CH) losses from multiple sources (open digestate storages, digesters and flare) at two biogas facilities over one year, providing a much needed dataset integrating all major loss pathways and changes over time. Losses of CH from Facility A were primarily from digestate storage (5.8% of biogas CH), followed by leakage/venting (5.

A gap in nitrous oxide emission reporting complicates long-term climate mitigation.

Nitrous oxide (NO) is an important greenhouse gas (GHG) that also contributes to depletion of ozone in the stratosphere. Agricultural soils account for about 60% of anthropogenic NO emissions. Most national GHG reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change assumes nitrogen (N) additions drive emissions during the growing season, but soil freezing and thawing during spring is also an important driver in cold climates.

Long-term variability in NO emissions and emission factors for corn and soybeans induced by weather and management at a cold climate site.

Nitrous oxide (NO) emissions are highly variable in space and time due to the complex interplay between soil, management practices and weather conditions. Micrometeorological techniques integrate emissions over large areas at high temporal resolution. This allows identification of causes of intra- and inter-annual variability of NO emissions and development of robust emission factors (EF).