Soil organic carbon storage capacity of old and modern wheat varieties
Résumé
Despite the possible mitigation of carbon emissions by favoring carbon transfer to terrestrial carbon sinks, little is known
about the capacity of different crop genotypes to enhance soil carbon sequestration. We hypothesize that carbon sequestration
potential linked to old wheat varieties (released before 1960) is higher than the one linked to modern ones while old varieties
are known to develop bigger and deeper root systems. Moreover, modern varieties are often cultivated using synthetic
chemical inputs known to modify soil carbon dynamics. We conducted a field experiment by cultivating four modern and
four old wheat varieties, with and without chemical inputs (nitrogen, herbicide and fungicide), in Calcaric Cambisol
conditions. After root and soil sampling, root morphology was assessed by image analysis, whereas potential catabolic
activities by soil microbial communities was assessed by MicroResp ™ measurements. Additionally, CO2 emissions
measurements were done by incubating soil and roots from each agronomic modality. Results suggest that the genotype (old
versus modern varieties) did not affect root traits nor substrates respiration, but the soil from old variety modalities released
6% more CO2 than the one from modern ones. Application of inputs did not affect root traits, but increased soil microbial
respiration by 11%. Inputs also increased the respiration of citric acid by 19.1%, while it decreased respiration of fructose and
alanine by 8.84% and 16.79%, respectively. Taken together, our results invalidate the hypothesis that old varieties could be
more performant than modern ones in storing carbon in this specific soil.