Greenhouse gas mitigation potential in crop production with biochar soil amendment-a carbon footprint assessment for cross-site field experiments from China

Biochar soil amendment (BSA) had been advocated as a promising approach to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in agriculture. However, the net GHG mitigation potential of BSA remained unquantified with regard to the manufacturing process and field application. Carbon footprint (CF) was employed to assess the mitigating potential of BSA by estimating all the direct and indirect GHG emissions in the full life cycles of crop production including production and field application of biochar. Data were obtained from 7 sites (4 sites for paddy rice production and 3 sites for maize production) under a single BSA at 20 t/ha(-1) across mainland China. Considering soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration and GHG emission reduction from syngas recycling, BSA reduced the CFs by 20.37-41.29 t carbon dioxide equivalent ha(-1) (CO2-eq ha(-1)) and 28.58-39.49 t CO2-eq ha(-1) for paddy rice and maize production, respectively, compared to no biochar application. Without considering SOC sequestration and syngas recycling, the net CF change by BSA was in a range of -25.06 to 9.82 t CO2-eq ha(-1) and -20.07 to 5.95 t CO2-eq ha(-1) for paddy rice and maize production, respectively, over no biochar application. As the largest contributors among the others, syngas recycling in the process of biochar manufacture contributed by 47% to total CF reductions under BSA for rice cultivation while SOC sequestration contributed by 57% for maize cultivation. There was a large variability of the CF reductions across the studied sites whether in paddy rice or maize production, due likely to the difference in GHG emission reductions and SOC increments under BSA across the sites. This study emphasized that SOC sequestration should be taken into account the CF calculation of BSA. Improved biochar manufacturing technique could achieve a remarkable carbon sink by recycling the biogas for traditional fossil-fuel replacement.