Soil organic carbon assessment using the Carbon Management Evaluation Tool for Voluntary Reporting and the Soil Conditioning Index

Abstract

Simple, yet reliable models are needed to quantify soil organic carbon (SOC) changes for the wide diversity of agricultural management conditions in the United States. We compared the outputs of two relatively simple models currently available for farmers and government-financed farm support agencies: the Carbon (C) Management Evaluation Tool for Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases (COMET-VR) and the Soil Conditioning Index (SCI). Simulations were conducted for 18 locations throughout the United States for five soil textural regimes (loamy sand, sandy loam, silt loam, clay loam, and silty clay loam), three tillage management systems (conventional tillage [CT], minimum tillage [MT], and no tillage [NT]), and two crop rotations (wheat [Triticum aestivum L.]–potato [Solanum tuberosum L.] and wheat–four-year alfalfa [Medicago sativa L.] in western states and corn [Zea mays L.]–soybean [Glycine max L.] and corn–soybean–wheat in eastern states). Both models ranked SOC change as NT > MT > CT, whereby SOC change decreased with increasing soil disturbance with tillage. However, models were divergent with regards to soil texture; SOC change was greater in coarse-textured than in fine-textured soils with COMET-VR, but SOC change was lower in coarse-textured than in fine-textured soils with SCI. For crop rotations, SOC change was greater or equal in simpler than in more complex rotation with COMET-VR, but smaller in simpler than in more complex rotations with SCI. Overall, SOC sequestration predicted by COMET-VR was positively related to SCI score, especially when accounting for differences in environmental conditions of a location. Our results suggest that both models have value and limitations and that measures of SOC sequestration are predictable with these tools under a diversity of typical management conditions in the United States.