Soil & Tillage Research 101 (2008) 97100

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Soil & Tillage Research

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Short communication

No-till only increases N2O emissions in poorly-aerated soils

Philippe Rochette *
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2560 Hochelaga Blvd, Quebec City, QC, Canada G1V 2J3

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 10 March 2008
Received in revised form 22 May 2008
Accepted 21 July 2008

Denitrication rates are often greater in no-till than in tilled soils and net soil-surface greenhouse gas
emissions could be increased by enhanced soil N2O emissions following adoption of no-till. The objective
of this study was to summarize published experimental results to assess whether the response of soil N2O
uxes to the adoption of no-till is inuenced by soil aeration. A total of 25 eld studies presenting direct
comparisons between conventional tillage and no-till (approximately 45 site-years of data) were
reviewed and grouped according to soil aeration status estimated using drainage class and precipitation
during the growing season. The summary showed that no-till generally increased N2O emissions in
poorly-aerated soils but was neutral in soils with good and medium aeration. On average, soil N2O
emissions under no-till were 0.06 kg N ha 1 lower, 0.12 kg N ha 1 higher and 2.00 kg N ha 1 higher than
under tilled soils with good, medium and poor aeration, respectively. Our results therefore suggest that
the impact of no-till on N2O emissions is small in well-aerated soils but most often positive in soils where
aeration is reduced by conditions or properties restricting drainage. Considering typical soil C gains
following adoption of no-till, we conclude that increased N2O losses may result in a negative greenhouse
gas balance for many poorly-drained ne-textured agricultural soils under no-till located in regions with
a humid climate.
Crown Copyright 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
No-till
N2O
Drainage class
Soil aeration
Greenhouse gases

1. Introduction
No-till has been proposed to increase stocks of soil organic
matter and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (Gregorich et al.,
2005). However, denitrication is usually greater in soils under notill than under conventional tillage as a result of higher bulk
density and water content (Doran, 1980; Groffman, 1984; Arah
et al., 1991; Palma et al., 1997). Denitrication is often the main
source of N2O in agricultural soils and the benets of the adoption
of no-till on atmospheric CO2 sequestration could be offset by
increased N2O emissions (Six et al., 2002).
The impact of no-till on soil N2O emission is variable. Higher
(Ball et al., 1999; Rochette et al., 2008) and lower (Chatskikh and
Olesen, 2007; Gregorich et al., 2008) N2ON losses have been
measured in no-till compared to tilled soils. Predictions by
mathematical models also indicated that the inuence of no-till
on N2O emissions could be either positive (Mummey et al., 1998; Li
et al., 2005) or negative (Li et al., 1996). Six et al. (2004) concluded
that soil N2O emissions are increased under no-till but that this
impact decreases with time. However, an explanation of the high

* Tel.: +1 418 210 5042; fax: +1 418 648 2402.

E-mail address: rochettep@agr.gc.ca.

inter-site variability of the inuence of no-till on soil N2O

emissions is still lacking. In this study, we hypothesized that
adoption of no-till only increases N2O emissions in poorly-aerated
soils.
2. Materials and methods
We summarized reports of eld N2O emissions from 25 studies
(approximately 45 site-years of data) with same-site comparisons
of no-till and tilled soils. Soil aeration is closely related to water
content (Linn and Doran, 1984). Therefore, each situation was
classied under either good, medium or poor soil aeration
class based on soil drainage and precipitation during the growing
season. Soil aeration was estimated to be poor if drainage was
poor irrespective of precipitation. When not present in the cited
document, information on drainage class for a given soil series was
obtained from soil survey publications. Situations with poor
drainage and aeration were also mostly characterised by netextured soils under cool humid climates (Table 1). Soils with good
or medium drainage were assigned to a good or medium
aeration class depending if precipitation (including irrigation)
during the growing season was <400 mm or >400 mm, respectively. At most sites characterized by a semi-arid climate,
precipitation was <300 mm and 400 mm was selected as the

0167-1987/$ see front matter . Crown Copyright 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.still.2008.07.011

P. Rochette / Soil & Tillage Research 101 (2008) 97100

98

Table 1
Cumulative eld N2O emissions and other ancillary parameters in tilled (T) and no-till (NT) agricultural soils
Aeration
status

Drainage

Growing season
precipitationsa
(mm)

Soil texture

Climate

Tillageb
type
(depth)

Measurement
period (d yr 1)

Cumulated N2O emissions

(kg N2ON ha 1)
NT

Good

384
305
271
270
320
242
291
298

Loam
Loam
Sandy cl. loam
Sandy cl. loam
Loam
Clay loam
Silt loam

Cool
Semi-arid
Semi-arid
Semi-arid
Semi-arid
Semi-arid
Semi-arid

MP (30)
MP (15)
R (10)
R (10)
R (10)
R (10)
D (10)

365
365
110
130
170
170
365
239

1.32
0.25
0.12
0.34
0.30
0.97
0.38
0.39c

0.80
0.31
0.25
0.40
0.29
1.46
0.38
0.45c

0.52
0.06
0.12
0.06
0.01
0.49
0.0
0.06

Oorts et al., 2007

Kessavalou et al. (1998)
Malhi et al. (2006)
Malhi and Lemke (2007)
Lemke et al. (1999)
Lemke et al. (1999)
Dusenbury et al. (2008)

ns
High
High
High

694
640
622
429

Volcanic ash
Sandy loam
Loam
Loamy sand

Cool humid
Cool humid
Cool humid
Cool

MP
MP
MP
MP

(25)
(20)
(ns)
(20)

365
215
365
113

0.83d
1.11
1.32
0.43

0.27
0.99
1.20
0.89

0.56
0.12
0.12
0.46

410
620
560
552
552
574
1200
1000
654

Loam
Loam
Loam
Clay loam
Clay loam
Loam
Clay
Clay loam

Cool humid
Cool humid
Cool humid
Semi-arid + Ir.
Semi-arid + Ir.
Cool humid
Sub-tropical
Sub-tropical

ns (25)
C + RT
MP (20)
MP (ns)
MP (ns)
MP (20)
D (20)
D (15)

6579
150
180
365
365
225
365
180
247

1.97
1.84
1.00
1.19
0.99
2.10
0.87
0.31
1.02c

0.46
1.88
1.34
1.51
1.29
1.80
0.70
0.35
0.90c

1.51
0.04
0.34
0.32
0.30
0.30
0.17
0.04
0.12

Koga et al. (2004)

Rochette et al. (2008)
Grandy et al. (2006)
Chatskikh and Olesen
(2007)
Baggs et al. (2003)
Jacinthe and Dick (1997)
Gregorich et al. (2008)
Liu et al. (2005)
Mosier et al. (2006)
Larouche (2006)
Jantilia et al. (2008)
Metay et al. (2007)

430
430
590
400
377
680
574
640
515

Clay loam
Clay loam
Loam
Heavy clay
Clay loam
Silty loam
Heavy clay
Heavy clay

Cool
Cool
Cool
Cool
Cool
Cool
Cool
Cool

MP (15)
MP (15)
C (18)
MP (ns)
MP (20)
MP (25)
MP (20)
MP (20)

215
215
365
200
77
260
240
215
223

3.35
1.00
7.74
4.40
13.0f
12.0
2.79
32.7
5.97c

3.82
1.15
7.58
2.00
3.80f
9.20
1.99
13.3
3.97c

0.47
0.15
0.16
2.40
9.20
2.80
0.80
19.34
2.00

Medium
High
High
Medium
Medium
High
High
High
Mean
Poor

Mean
a
b
c
d
e
f

NTT

High
High
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium

Mean
Medium

Reference

Poor
Poor
Poor
Poor
Poore
Poor
Poor
Poor

humid
humid
humid
humid
humid
humid
humid
humid

Drury et al. (2006)

Kaharabata et al. (2003)
Parkin and Kaspar (2006)
Burford et al. (1981)
Ball et al. (1999)
Choudhary et al. (2002)
MacKenzie et al. (1997)
Rochette et al. (2008)

Including irrigation.
MP = moldboard plowing; R = rotovator; C = Chizel; RT = ridge tillage; D = disking; ns = not specied.
Geometric mean.
Reduced tillage.
Gleysol.
Estimated using values in Fig. 3 of Ball et al. (1999).

threshold above which soil water content can restrict aeration.

When emission data were reported for several years in a given
study, all cumulative N2O emissions during the measurement
period were averaged. Finally, to account for the skewed
distribution of soil N2O uxes, the mean cumulated N2O for each
soil aeration class was estimated as the geometric mean of values
reported for each tillage practice.
3. Results and discussion
Most studies conducted in poorly-aerated soils had greater N2O
emissions under no-till than under conventional tillage while both
positive and negative responses of emissions to no-till were
observed on soils with good or medium aeration (Table 1).
Cumulative emissions in poorly-aerated soils were greater under
no-till in 6 out of 8 studies and differences were >2 kg N ha 1 on
four occasions. In addition, the distribution of differences in N2O
emissions between tilled and no-till situations was skewed
towards positive values, indicating that the impact of no-till on
N2O emissions can be exceptionally high at a few poorly-drained
locations. In contrast, in soils with good and medium aeration,
differences in emissions between tillage practices were small and
equally distributed between positive and negative values. On
average, soil N2O emissions under no-till were 0.06 kg N ha 1
lower, 0.12 kg N ha 1 higher and 2.00 kg N ha 1 higher than under
tilled soils with good, medium and poor aeration, respectively. The

ratio of mean cumulative emissions from no-till to tilled soils in the

same three aeration classes was 0.87, 1.13 and 1.50 (Fig. 1). This
summary therefore suggests that the mean impact of no-till on
N2O emissions is small in well-aerated soils but most often positive
on soils where aeration is restricted.
The response of N2O emissions to conversion from conventional
tillage to no-till was variable in all soil aeration classes but
variability was greatest in poorly-aerated soils (Table 1). The
grouping of situations based on soil drainage class may explain
part of this variability. Soil drainage classes in soil classication
systems do not necessarily reect the current drainage level but
rather reect the conditions that prevailed during soil development. Especially, several poorly-drained agricultural soils are
articially drained and therefore have a better aeration status than
indicated by their drainage class. Also, the structure of surface soil
was shown to improve with time after conversion to no-till and
this evolution of soil properties likely impacts on N2O production
and emission (Six et al., 2004). Therefore, grouping soils with
different tillage history has likely contributed to increase
variability.
Increased emissions associated with poorly-aerated conditions
strongly suggest that the additional N2O originates from enhanced
denitrication in no-till soils. Oxygen often limits denitrication in
agricultural soils (Smith and Tiedje, 1979) and higher soil water
content in no-till soils usually results in lower aeration and greater
denitrication rates than in tilled soils (Doran, 1980; Groffman,

P. Rochette / Soil & Tillage Research 101 (2008) 97100

99

References

Fig. 1. Mean ratio of cumulated N2O emissions from no-till (NT) to tilled (T) soils
with poor, medium and good aeration.

1984; Arah et al., 1991; Palma et al., 1997). Accordingly, Rochette

et al. (2008) observed that N2O emissions were increased in a
heavy clay under no-till only when water-lled pore space (WFPS)
was 0.6 m3 m 3, the threshold above which denitrication is
favoured (Linn and Doran, 1984). In a well-drained gravely loam,
WFPS remained below 0.6 m3 m 3 and emissions were similar in
no-till and moldboard plowed soils (Rochette et al., 2008). We
hypothesize that the inuence of soil aeration on the response of
N2O emissions to no-till (Table 1) is in part explained by the fact
that, even though no-till increases soil density and water content
in most soils, WFPS values reach 0.6 m3 m 3 more often in poorlyaerated soils than in well-aerated soils.
A relationship between N2O emissions and soil aeration suggests
that disaggregating agricultural land into sub-categories based on
soil and climate characteristics may provide an opportunity for
improving our estimates of the response of soil N2O emission to notill. Soil aeration level and water content are highly variable in space
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conditions are closely related to soil texture. Strong relationships
were found between particle size distribution and water content or
air-lled porosity (da Sylva and Kay, 1997; Minasny et al., 1999).
Accordingly, soil texture-related variables (sand or clay content)
often correlate with N2O emissions from agricultural soils (Henault
et al., 1998; Corre et al., 1999; Chadwick et al., 1999; Bouwman et al.,
2002; Freibauer, 2003) and results summarized in Table 1 suggest
that soil texture and climate might also be used to estimate the
response of soil N2O emissions to no-till.
4. Conclusions
Increases in soil organic matter content are often observed
following the adoption of no-till. For example, it was estimated
that conversion of conventionally-tilled soils to no-till in Canada
results in a mean gain of 60160 kg C ha 1 yr 1 during the rst
20 yr following conversion (VandenBygaart et al., 2008). In
addition to improve soil quality, this change in soil C stocks is a
sink for atmospheric CO2, the most abundant greenhouse gas. Notill is therefore often suggested as a mean for reducing net
greenhouse gas emissions from farms. In this study, we estimated
that N2O emissions on poorly-aerated soils are on average
2 kg N2ON ha 1 higher under no-till than under conventional
tillage. Considering that the global warming potential of 1 kg of
emitted N2ON ha 1 is equivalent to a loss in soil C of
approximately 125 kg C ha 1, we conclude that no-till may
increase net greenhouse gas emissions from many poorly-drained
(ne-textured) agricultural soils located in regions with a humid
climate.

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