203 results for group: agriculture-1

Potential and costs of carbon dioxide removal by enhanced weathering of rocks

Jessica Strefler, Thorben Amann, Nico Bauer, Elmar Kriegler and Jens Hartmann Abstract The chemical weathering of rocks currently absorbs about 1.1 Gt CO2 a−1 being mainly stored as bicarbonate in the ocean. An enhancement of this slow natural process could remove substantial amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, aiming to offset some unavoidable anthropogenic emissions in order to comply with the Paris Agreement, while at the same time it may decrease ocean acidification. We provide the first comprehensive assessment of economic costs, energy requirements, technical parameterization, and global and regional carbon removal potential. The ...

Increased yield and CO2 sequestration potential with the C4 cereal Sorghum bicolor cultivated in basaltic rock dust-amended agricultural soil

Mike E. Kelland, Peter W. Wade, Amy L. Lewis, Lyla L. Taylor, Binoy Sarkar, M. Grace Andrews, Mark R. Lomas, T. E. Anne Cotton, Simon J. Kemp, Rachael H. James, Christopher R. Pearce, Sue E. Hartley, Mark E. Hodson, Jonathan R. Leake, Steven A. Banwart, David J. Beerling Abstract Land-based enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is a biogeochemical carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy aiming to accelerate natural geological processes of carbon sequestration through application of crushed silicate rocks, such as basalt, to croplands and forested landscapes. However, the efficacy of the approach when undertaken with basalt, and its potential ...

How will minerals feed the world in 2050?

David A.C.Manning Abstract By 2050, the world’s population will have reached 9 billion. To feed that many people, soil fertility will have to be maintained artificially. All fertiliser materials depend on a geological resource: nitrogen (N) fertilizer production needs fossil fuels, and both phosphate (P) and potassium (K) are derived by mining. Irrespective of new biological techniques in plant breeding and genetic modification, soils still need to supply the mineral nutrients that plants require, and these are exported from soil with every harvest. Studies of global offtake of N, P and K from soils through crop production show that ...

ENHANCED CHEMICAL WEATHERING AS A GEOENGINEERING STRATEGY TO REDUCE ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE, SUPPLY NUTRIENTS, AND MITIGATE OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

Jens Hartmann, A. Joshua West, Phil Renforth, Peter Köhler, Christina L. De La Rocha, Dieter A. Wolf-Gladrow, Hans H. Dürr, Jürgen Scheffran Abstract Chemical weathering is an integral part of both the rock and carbon cycles and is being affected by changes in land use, particularly as a result of agricultural practices such as tilling, mineral fertilization, or liming to adjust soil pH. These human activities have already altered the terrestrial chemical cycles and land-ocean flux of major elements, although the extent remains difficult to quantify. When deployed on a grand scale, Enhanced Weathering (a form of mineral fertilization), ...

Effect of rock dust-amended compost on the soil properties, soil microbial activity, and fruit production in an apple orchard from the Jiangsu province of China

Jiangang Li, Dmitri V. Mavrodi and Yuanhua Dong Abstract This study examined the effect of compost fortified with rock dust on the soil properties, soil microbial activity, and yield and fruit quality in a mature apple orchard from the Jiangsu province of China. The incor-poration of rock dust significantly improved the microelement contents of Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, B, and Al, but without increasing phytotoxicity of the compost. The fortified compost had higher metabolic activity and functional diversity of microorganisms as determined by the community-level physiological profiling with Biolog EcoPlates. The two-year incorporation of the ...

Historical and technical developments of potassium resources

Davide Ciceri, David A.C.Manning, Antoine Allanore Abstract The mining of soluble potassium salts (potash) is essential for manufacturing fertilizers required to ensure continuous production of crops and hence global food security. As of 2014, potash is mined predominantly in the northern hemisphere, where large deposits occur. Production tonnage and prices do not take into account the needs of the farmers of the poorest countries. Consequently, soils of some regions of the southern hemisphere are currently being depleted of potassium due to the expansion and intensification of agriculture coupled with the lack of affordable potash. Moving ...

Carbonate Precipitation in Artificial Soils Produced from Basaltic Quarry Fines and Composts: An Opportunity for Passive Carbon Sequestration

D.A.C. Manning, P. Renforth, E. Lopez-Capel, S. Robertson, N. Ghazireh Abstract The proportions of different carbon pools within artificial soils prepared by blending composts with dolerite and basalt quarry fines has changed over a period of 7 years, accumulating inorganic carbon as carbonate minerals newly formed within the soils. With no artificial energy inputs following construction, this is regarded as a passive mineral carbonation process. Carbon isotope data show that up to 40% of the carbon within the soil carbonate is derived from photosynthesis, mixed with carbon from geological sources (limestone present in the quarry fines). ...

Biological Enhancement of Soil Carbonate Precipitation: Passive Removal of Atmospheric CO2

D.A.C. Manning Abstract Soils are the dominant terrestrial sink for carbon, containing three times as much C as above-ground plant biomass, and acting as a host for both organic and inorganic C, as soil organic matter and pedogenic carbonates, respectively. This article reviews evidence for the generation within the soil solution of dissolved C derived from plants and recognition of its precipitation as carbonates. It then considers the potential value of this process for artificially-mediated CO2 sequestration within soils. The ability of crops such as wheat to produce organic acid anions as root exudates is substantial, generating 70 ...

Biofortification of crops with seven mineral elements often lacking in human diets – iron, zinc, copper, calcium, magnesium, selenium and iodine

Philip J White, Martin R Broadley Abstract The diets of over two-thirds of the world’s population lack one or more essential mineral elements. This can be remedied through dietary diversification, mineral supplementation, food fortification, or increasing the concentrations and/or bio- availability of mineral elements in produce (biofortification). This article reviews aspects of soil science, plant physiology and genetics underpinning crop biofortification strategies, as well as agronomic and genetic approaches currently taken to biofortify food crops with the mineral elements most commonly lacking in human diets: iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), ...

Farming with Crops and Rocks to Address Global Climate, Food and Soil Security

David J. Beerling, Jonathan R. Leake, Stephen P. Long, Julie D. Scholes, Jurriaan Ton, Paul N. Nelson, Michael Bird, Euripides Kantzas, Lyla L. Taylor, Binoy Sarkar, Mike Kelland, Evan DeLucia, Ilsa Kantola, Christoph Müller, Greg Rau & James Hansen Abstract The magnitude of future climate change could be moderated by immediately reducing the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere as a result of energy generation and by adopting strategies that actively remove CO2 from it. Biogeochemical improvement of soils by adding crushed, fast-reacting silicate rocks to croplands is one such CO2-removal strategy. This approach has the potential to ...