Proefschrift
Soil organic amendments for climate-smart agriculture
Organic amendments applied to agricultural fields can partially offset our carbon emissions to the atmosphere and improve the resilience of agriculture to the effects of climate change. Driving these benefits, however, are complex and poorly understood interactions between organic amendment properties, microbial communities and soil environmental conditions.
- Auteur
- D.D. Kok
- Datum
- 26 september 2024
- Links
- Thesis in Leiden Repository
In this thesis, I explore the impact of amendment decomposition on changes in soil microbial, chemical and physical properties to develop a better understanding of how different organic amendments can be utilized for sustainable soil management and climate-smart agriculture. Experimental results reveal a number of properties within amendments that are influential in driving efficient soil carbon accumulation, microbial biomass growth, and improving soil hydraulic and physical properties. We also demonstrate the impact of amendments on changes in the soil resilience to rapid temperature fluctuations and introduce the MiPrime model, a model for predicting soil carbon dynamics after applying organic amendments of different types. Through the work in this thesis, we hope to facilitate the design of more efficient and effective amendment application strategies.