Effects of fertilization and stand age on N₂O and NO emissions from tea plantations: a site-scale study in a subtropical region using a modified biogeochemical model

Abstract

To meet increasing demands, tea plantations are rapidly expanding in China. Although the emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitric oxide (NO) from tea plantations may be substantially influenced by soil pH reduction and intensive nitrogen fertilization, process model-based studies on this issue are still rare. In this study, the process-oriented biogeochemical model, Catchment Nutrient Management Model – DeNitrification-DeComposition (CNMM-DNDC), was modified by adding tea-growth-related processes that may induce a soil pH reduction. Using a dataset for intensively managed tea plantations at a subtropical site, the performances of the original and modified models for simulating the emissions of both gases subject to different fertilization alternatives and stand ages were evaluated. Compared with the observations in the early stage of a tea plantation, the original and modified models showed comparable performances for simulating the daily gas fluxes (with a Nash–Sutcliffe index (NSI) of 0.10 versus 0.18 for N2O and 0.32 versus 0.33 for NO), annual emissions (with an NSI of 0.81 versus 0.94 for N2O and 0.92 versus 0.94 for NO) and annual direct emission factors (EFds). For the modified model, the observations and simulations demonstrated that the short-term replacement of urea with oil cake stimulated N2O emissions by ∼62 % and ∼36 % and mitigated NO emissions by ∼25 % and ∼14 %, respectively. The model simulations resulted in a positive dependence of EFds of either gas on nitrogen doses, implicating the importance of model-based quantification of this key parameter for inventory purposes. In addition, the modified model with pH-related scientific processes showed overall inhibitory effects on the gases' emissions in the middle to late stages during a full tea plant lifetime. In conclusion, the modified CNMM-DNDC exhibits the potential for quantifying N2O and NO emissions from tea plantations under various conditions. Nevertheless, wider validation is still required for simulation of long-term soil pH variations and emissions of both gases from tea plantations.