west Nebraska northeast Colorado | Joel, in the current excitement over carbon sequestration, have you seen anything where the soil testing tries to differentiate between very stable carbon compounds (that probably required a bunch of extra nitrogen inputs to form) and labile forms of carbon (such as picking up a piece of decomposing plant tissue in the soil sample which would make the carbon capture look huge). The stable compounds might actually sequester something long term if reasonable management continues, but I would think the labile forms could easily decompose back to CO2 from very minor changes in management, weather, etc. It seems to me that claiming meaningful carbon sequestration is questionable until this issue is addressed. The net climate effects of agricultural carbon sequestration also seem questionable if you consider the energy emissions required to produce the additional nitrogen required to form the more stable carbon compounds. Thanks for your thoughts, Doug |
what if carbon does not collect as thought/intended?
