A global meta-analysis of greenhouse gases emission and crop yield under no-tillage as compared to conventional tillage

Awais Shakoor; Muhammad Shahbaz; Taimoor Hassan Farooq; Najam E Sahar; Sher Muhammad Shahzad; Muhammad Mohsin Altaf; Muhammad Ashraf

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142299

A global meta-analysis of greenhouse gases emission and crop yield under no-tillage as compared to conventional tillage

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jan 1:750:142299. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142299. Epub 2020 Sep 13.

Authors

Awais Shakoor¹, Muhammad Shahbaz², Taimoor Hassan Farooq³, Najam E Sahar⁴, Sher Muhammad Shahzad⁵, Muhammad Mohsin Altaf⁶, Muhammad Ashraf⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environment and Soil Sciences, University of Lleida, Avinguda Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, 25198 Lleida, Spain. Electronic address: awais.shakoor@udl.cat.
² Centre for Environmental and Climate Research, Lund University, 223 62 Lund, Sweden.
³ College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, Hunan, China.
⁴ School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
⁵ Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture, University of Sargodha, Sargodha 40100, Punjab, Pakistan.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, College of Ecology and Environment, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, PR China.
⁷ Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan.

PMID: 33182198
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142299

Abstract

No-tillage (NT) practice is extensively adopted with aims to improve soil physical conditions, carbon (C) sequestration and to alleviate greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions without compromising crop yield. However, the influences of NT on GHGs emissions and crop yields remains inconsistent. A global meta-analysis was performed by using fifty peer-reviewed publications to assess the effectiveness of soil physicochemical properties, nitrogen (N) fertilization, type and duration of crop, water management and climatic zones on GHGs emissions and crop yields under NT compared to conventional tillage (CT) practices. The outcome reveals that compared to CT, NT increased CO₂, N₂O, and CH₄ emissions by 7.1, 12.0, and 20.8%, respectively. In contrast, NT caused up to 7.6% decline in global warming potential as compared to CT. However, absence of difference in crop yield was observed both under NT and CT practices. Increasing N fertilization rates under NT improved crop yield and GHGs emission up to 23 and 58%, respectively, compared to CT. Further, NT practices caused an increase of 16.1% CO₂ and 14.7% N₂O emission in the rainfed areas and up to 54.0% CH₄ emission under irrigated areas as compared to CT practices. This meta-analysis study provides a scientific basis for evaluating the effects of NT on GHGs emissions and crop yields, and also provides basic information to mitigate the GHGs emissions that are associated with NT practice.

Keywords: Crop yield; GHGs emission; Meta-analysis; Mitigation; No-tillage.