Monitoring of greenhouse gases from soil during two cropping seasons of maize in a Mediterranean environment

(A challenge for agriculture is to individuate strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from soil while preserving crop yield. Agricultural practices are reported to affect carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) emissions from soil due to their effects on nutrient cycling and soil conditions (e.g. soil water content, soil temperature etc.). A field campaign was carried out to measure the effect of reducing irrigation level (drip irrigation, rainfed) and N fertilizer rate (170 kg N ha-1, 130 kg N ha-1, 0 kg N ha-1) on GHG emissions from soil and on crop yield on maize cultivated in Tuscany region (Italy). Main result highlighted that decreasing N fertilization of about 20% reduced cumulative N2O emissions (on average-42%) without decreasing the crop productivity, indicating that improving the N use efficiency could be the best strategy to reduce GHG emissions from soil cultivated with maize in our environment).