Soil CO2 Emission Induced by Tillage Machines
János Péter Rádics, István J. Jóri, László Fenyvesi

Abstract
Human activity caused significant changes in Earth’s atmosphere generated primary by greenhouse gas emission of increased energy production, industrial activity, intensive agriculture and forestry of the last century. Tillage has prominent role in the climate change mitigation and reversal. Important emitter of natural greenhouse gases is the cultivated soil. The absolute value of carbon-dioxide emission of the agricultural soils can be estimated well, although further researches are necessary in this field to establish adequate description of carbon dioxide emission from soil after different cultivation methods and tillage practices. We are studying the relations of tillage and soil carbon-dioxide emission (CO2 flux). Our research of the last ten years pointed to the correlation of tillage intensity and short term CO2 flux. To have information about the amount of emitted CO2, information is needed on the intermediate-term impacts of various tillage operations. We made intermediate-term studies on different fields and measured the emitted carbon-dioxide flux of different tillage machines after tillage using validated portable chamber method. The examined operations were moldboard ploughing, field cultivating and compact disc harrowing. Investigated the results of the long term study has shown, that the quantity of emitted CO2 by the moldboard ploughing was 36% higher while the disc harrowing and field cultivating produced only 18% and 5% more CO2 flux as the reference plot.

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