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Significant efforts have been made to assess the impact of tillage regimes on crop yields and/or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across single crop growing season. However, few studies have quantified the impact across a whole rotation cycle in multiple cropping systems. Utilizing on a long-term tillage experiment with the rice–wheat rotation system in East China, we examined the GHG emissions under different tillage practices with or without crop straw incorporation. Results showed that compared to the no-straw control, straw incorporation increased wheat yield by 28.3% ( P < 0.05), irrespective of tillage practices, but had no significant effect on rice yield. Although straw incorporation did not significantly affect CH 4 emissions during the wheat season and N 2 O emissions during the whole rice–wheat cycle, it significantly stimulated CH 4 emissions by 98.8% ( P < 0.01) during the rice season. Also, there were no significant differences in CH 4 and N 2 O emissions between tillage practices during the wheat season. Compared to plowing, rotary tillage increased CH 4 emissions significantly by an average of 38.8% ( P < 0.01) but had no significant impacts on N 2 O emissions during the rice season. Across the rotation cycle, annual yield-scaled global warming potential of CH 4 and N 2 O emissions under no-tillage plus rotary tillage was 26.8% ( P < 0.01) greater than that of rotary tillage plus plowing with or without straw incorporation. Significant interactions between soil tillage and straw management practices were found on annual GHG emissions, but not on crop yields. Together, these results indicate that plowing in the rice season plus rotary tillage in the wheat season may reduce GHG emissions while increasing crop yield in rice–wheat cropping areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from paddy field have primarily focused on the post-transplanting period, however, recent researches raise new concerns about GHGs emission from rice nursery. In this study, CH 4 and N 2 O fluxes were determined from different nurseries under major rice cropping systems in China. The tested nurseries included flooded nursery (FN), moist nursery (MN) and dry nursery (DN). Methane emissions from FN were significantly higher than those from MN and DN under all the rice cropping systems. When comparing with FN, MN decreased total CH 4 emissions by 74.2%, 72.1% and 49.6% under the rice–upland rotation cropping system (RUR), and the double rice cropping system for the early rice (EDR) and the late rice (LDR), respectively. DN decreased CH 4 emissions by 99.2%, 92.0%, 99.0% and 78.6% compared to FN under the single rice cropping system (SR), RUR, EDR and LDR, respectively. When comparing with FN, MN and DN increased N 2 O emissions by 58.1–134.1% and 28.2–332.7%, respectively. Ultimately, compared with FN across the cropping systems, MN and DN decreased net global warming potentials (GWPs) of CH 4 and N 2 O by 33–68% and 43–86%, respectively. The mitigating effect of MN and DN on total GWPs varied greatly across the systems, ranging from 30.8% in the LDR to 86.5% in the SR. Chinese actual emission from rice nurseries was reduced to 956.66 × 10 3 t CO 2 eq from the theoretical estimate of 2242.59 × 10 3 t CO 2 eq if under the flooded nursery scenario in 2012. Taking into account the large rice nursery area (2032.52 × 10 3 ha) in China, the results of this study clearly indicate the importance to estimate and mitigate GHGs emission from flooded rice nursery. Being effective to reduce GHG emissions and increase rice yield, dry nursery technique is a promising candidate for climate smart rice cropping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]