Assessing the Effect of a Deep-Rooted Grass on Belowground Carbon Storage in Cultivated Land: Insights From a Multi-Site US Study

Abstract

Agriculture depletes soil organic carbon (SOC), partly due to the exclusion of deep-rooted perennials. Reintroducing deep-rooted perennials to cultivated land may help to mitigate SOC loss. We quantified the effect of deep roots on SOC by comparing 8 to 30 year-old stands of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) with paired annual row crop fields at 12 sites across the central and eastern USA. We hypothesized that switchgrass would store more root C and SOC than neighboring shallow-rooted annual crops, and that these effects would extend deeper than 30 cm. We also evaluated whether switchgrass stimulates decomposition of SOC at depth using radiocarbon (¹⁴C). Finally, we explored whether the effect of switchgrass on SOC is moderated by soil chemical and physical properties. While the effect of switchgrass on SOC in the surface 100 cm was positive at most sites, the average effect was not statistically significant (difference in SOC = 0.6 kg C m⁻² [95% CI −0.8 to +1.9 kg C m⁻²]). By contrast, we found that root C was consistently more abundant under switchgrass, yielding an estimated additional 0.6 kg C m⁻² in the surface 100 cm of soil [95% CI +0.5 to +0.7 kg C m⁻²]. ¹⁴C measurements suggested that root C inputs were adding to existing SOC without stimulating decomposition. The effect of switchgrass on belowground C was not strongly related to any of the soil properties that we evaluated. Our observations show that root C can contribute substantially to belowground C stocks when deep-rooted perennials replace shallow-rooted crops.