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Understanding the characteristics of the production of nitrogen gases (N2, N2O and NO), CO2 and CH4 in anaerobic paddy soils is not only a prerequisite for an improved mechanistic understanding of key microbial processes involved in the production of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG), but might also provide the basis for designing greenhouse gas mitigation strategies. Moreover, quantifying the composition fractions of denitrification gaseous products is of key importance for improving parameterization schemes of microbial processes in process-oriented models which are increasingly used for assessing soil GHG emissions at site and national scales. In our experiments we investigated two sandy loam soils from two paddy fields. The initial concentrations of soil nitrate and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) were set at approximately 50 mg.kg-1 and mg.kg-1, respectively, by adding a mixture solution of KNO3 and glucose. The emissions of N2, N2O NO, CO2 and CH4, as well as concentrations of carbon and nitrogen substrates for each soil sample were measured simultaneously, using a gas-flow-soil-core technique and a paralleling substrate monitoring system. The results showed that the accumulative emissions of N2, N2O and NO of the two soil samples for the entire incubation period were 6 - 8, 20, and 15 - 18 mg.kg-1, respectively. By measuring the cumulative emissions of denitrification gases (N, = N2 + N2O + NO) we were able to explain 95% to 98% of observed changes in s1ifr nilrate concentrations. The mass fractions of N2, N2O and NO emissions to Nt were approximately 15% -19%, 47% -49%, and 34% -36%, respectively. Thus, in our experiments N2O and NO were the main products of denitrification for the entire incubation period. However, as the temporal courses of hourly or daily production of the denitrification gases showed, NO production dominated and peaked firstly, and then N2O, before finally N2 became the dominant product. Our results show the high temporal dynamic of denitrification end products and this knowledge is of crucial importance for model development, since so far existing models assume a fixed fraction of denitrification end products.

Understanding the effects of carbon and nitrogen substrates concentrations on the emissions of denitrification gases including nitrogen (N2) , nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitric oxide (NO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from anaerobic paddy soils is believed to be helpful for development of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies. Moreover, understanding the quantitative dependence of denitrification products compositions on carbon substrate concentration could provide some key parameters or parameterization scheme for developing process-oriented model(s) of nitrogen transformation. Using a silt loam soil collected from a paddy field, we investigated the influence of carbon substrate concentration on the emissions of the denitrification gases, CO2 and CH4 from anaerobically incubated soils by setting two treatments: control (CK) with initial soil nitrate and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations of ~ 50 mg.kg-1 and -28 mg kg-1 , respectively; and DOC added (C + ) with initial soil nitrate and DOC concentrations of ~50 mg.kg-1 and ~300 mg.kg-1 , respectively. The emissions of denitrification gases, CO2 and CH4, as well as concentrations of carbon and nitrogen substrates for each treatment were dynamically measured, using the gas-flow-soil-core technique and a paralleling substrate monitoring system. The results showed that CH4 emission was not observed in CK treatment while observed in C treatment. Aggregate emission of greenhouse gases for C + treatment was significantly higher comparing with the CK treatment (P0. 01). The mass fractions of NO, N20 and N2 emissions in total nitrogen gases emissions were approximately 9% , 35% and 56% for CK treatment, respectively; and approximately 31% , 50% and 19% for C+ treatment, respectively, with significant differences between these two treatments (P0.01). The results indicated that carbon substrate concentrations can significantly change the composition of nitrogen gas emissions. The results also implicated that organic fertilizer should not be applied to nitrate-rich paddy soils prior to or during flooding so as to mitigate greenhouse gases emissions.

Using the static opaque chamber method, a field experiment was conducted in situ for two years to study the effects of three cultivation systems on CH4 and N2O emissions from permanently flooded rice fields in a hilly area in Southwest China. The results show that the average CH4 fluxes from a permanently flooded rice field with a single middle rice crop and flooded with no winter crop (PF) were (21.44 +/- 1.77) mg x (m2 x h)(-1) and (3.77 +/- 0.99) mg x (m2 x h)(-1) during rice-growing and non-rice growing periods, respectively, where both values were much lower than many previous reports from similar regions in Southwest China. The annual CH4 emission was mainly occurred in the rice growing period, being only 23.2% of the total annual CH4 flux emitted from the non-rice growing period, though the latter occupied two thirds of a year. The annual average flux of nitrous oxide was (0.051 +/- 0.008) mg x (m2 x h)(-1) and the N2O emission also intensive in the rice growing period. However, being only 8.1% of total annual N2O flux emitted from the non-rice growing period. After implementing the rice-wheat rotation (RW) and rice oil-seed rape rotation (RR), the CH4 emissions were reduced substantially, only 43.8% and 40.6% of those of PF, respectively. However, the N2O emissions were increased after conducting RW and RR systems, which were 3.7 and 4.5 times larger than those of PF. The global warming potentials (GWPs) of the CH4 and N2O emissions under the three tillage-cropping systems were assessed in an integrated way. The results show that the integrated GWPs of the CH4 and N2O emissions are in the following sequence: PFRR approximately equal to RR. Within 20, 100 and 500 years spans, the GWPs of the CH4 and N2O emissions of PF were 2.6, 2.1 and 1.7 times larger than those of RW (or RR), respectively. After introducing rice-wheat or rice oil-seed rape rotation systems into the permanently flooded rice fields, the integrated GWPs of the CH4 and N2O emissions were decreased largely.

To understand the CO2 emission from soil-crop system as influenced by crop growth and tissue N content, pot and field experiments were carried out during 2001-02 wheat and rice growing seasons. Black chambers were used to take gas samples within a closed soil-crop system. The CO2 emission rate was detected by a gas chromatograph. Seasonal change of the CO2 emission was observed from the soil-crop system. Respiration from the soil-rice system was higher than that from the soil-wheat system. Dark respiration of the crop shoot was positively correlated to the shoot biomass. The respiration coefficient Rd, defined as the amount of CO2-C respired by per unit biomass C within one day under a reference temperature of 25 degrees C, can be well quantitatively expressed by shoot N content for either wheat or rice crop. Relationship between the Rd and the N content can be described as a linear regression of Rd = 0.0124N - 0.0076 (R2=0.9879, p0.001) for the wheat crop and as a quadratic equation of Rd = 0.0085N2 - 0.0049N (R2=0.9776, p0.001) for the rice crop, respectively. The crop roots promoted the soil respiration greatly, which increased by 178% for the wheat and 338% for the rice in comparison with the respiration from root-free soil. A further calculation of the root respiration, including root autotrophic respiration and rhizosphere respiration, suggested that the contribution of crop rhizosphere respiration to the total soil respiration was greater in the upland soil than that in the irrigated paddy soil.