Nitrous oxide and methane emissions from different soil suspensions: effect of soil redox status

Four soil samples from fields of different land use [US (paddy field), China (paddy field) and Belgium (maize and wheat fields)] were incubated as soil suspension (soil:water ratio 1:4) to study the N₂O and CH₄ emission under different soil redox potential conditions. The results show that the N₂O emission was regulated within a narrow redox potential range of +120 to +250 mV, due to the balance of N₂O production and its further reduction to N₂. Methane emission occurred below a soil specific redox potential point, and the emission rates were inversely related to soil redox potentials. Both linear and exponential relationships between CH₄ emission and the soil redox potential were significant. By extrapolating the linear relationship of CH₄ emission against soil redox potential, the critical redox potentials for CH₄ production were estimated at about -170 (US paddy soil), -150 (Chinese paddy soil), -215 (Belgian maize soil), and -195 mV (Belgian wheat soil), respectively. In addition, the results indicate that a soil with a lower critical redox potential for CH₄ production had a higher CH₄ production potential. In this study, N₂O and CH₄ emissions were found to occur at a distinctly different soil redox potential condition. The range of soil redox potential values where both N₂O and CH₄ emissions were low was different for different soils, but it was situated between +120 and -170 mV. This is a wide redox potential range enabling field management practices to minimize both N₂O and CH₄ emissions from wetland ecosystems.