Short Communication: Soil carbon pools in different pasture systems

Abstract

<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The aim of this study was to assess the carbon pools of a tropical soil where the native forest was replaced with different pasture systems. We studied five pasture production systems, including four monoculture systems with forage grasses such as <em>Andropogon</em>, <em>Brachiaria</em>, <em>Panicum</em>, and <em>Cynodon</em>, and an agroforestry system as well as a native vegetation plot. Greater availability of fulvic acid was detected in the agroforestry system as compared with that in the other systems. Higher lability of C was detected in the <em>Andropogon</em> system during the dry and rainy seasons and during the dry season in <em>Cynodon</em>. During the dry season, all pastures systems showed deficits in the net removal of atmospheric CO₂. The structure and practices of the agroforestry system enables more carbon to be sequestered in the soil as compared with the monoculture pasture, suggesting that it is an important practice to mitigate climatic change and to improve soil quality.</span></span></p>