Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central US
Cover crops (CCs) can reduce nitrogen (N) loss to subsurface drainage and can be reimagined as bioenergy crops for renewable natural gas production and carbon (C) benefits (fossil fuel substitution and C storage). Little information is available on the large-scale adoption of winter rye for these pu...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd708 |
| _version_ | 1797747340227903488 |
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| author | Robert W Malone Anna Radke Steph Herbstritt Huaiqing Wu Zhiming Qi Bryan D Emmett Matthew J Helmers Lisa A Schulte Gary W Feyereisen Peter L O’Brien John L Kovar Natalia Rogovska Eileen J Kladivko Kelly R Thorp Tom C Kaspar Dan B Jaynes Douglas L Karlen Tom L Richard |
| author_facet | Robert W Malone Anna Radke Steph Herbstritt Huaiqing Wu Zhiming Qi Bryan D Emmett Matthew J Helmers Lisa A Schulte Gary W Feyereisen Peter L O’Brien John L Kovar Natalia Rogovska Eileen J Kladivko Kelly R Thorp Tom C Kaspar Dan B Jaynes Douglas L Karlen Tom L Richard |
| author_sort | Robert W Malone |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Cover crops (CCs) can reduce nitrogen (N) loss to subsurface drainage and can be reimagined as bioenergy crops for renewable natural gas production and carbon (C) benefits (fossil fuel substitution and C storage). Little information is available on the large-scale adoption of winter rye for these purposes. To investigate the impacts in the North Central US, we used the Root Zone Water Quality Model to simulate corn-soybean rotations with and without winter rye across 40 sites. The simulations were interpolated across a five-state area (IA, IL, IN, MN, and OH) with counties in the Mississippi River basin, which consists of ∼8 million ha with potential for rye CCs on artificially drained corn-soybean fields (more than 63 million ha total). Harvesting fertilized rye CCs before soybean planting in this area can reduce N loads to the Gulf of Mexico by 27% relative to no CCs, and provide 18 million Mg yr ^−1 of biomass-equivalent to 0.21 EJ yr ^−1 of biogas energy content or 3.5 times the 2022 US cellulosic biofuel production. Capturing the CO _2 in biogas from digesting rye in the region and sequestering it in underground geologic reservoirs could mitigate 7.5 million Mg CO _2 yr ^−1 . Nine clusters of counties (hotspots) were identified as an example of implementing rye as an energy CC on an industrial scale where 400 Gg yr ^−1 of rye could be sourced within a 121 km radius. Hotspots consisted of roughly 20% of the region’s area and could provide ∼50% of both the N loss reduction and rye biomass. These results suggest that large-scale energy CC adoption would substantially contribute to the goals of reducing N loads to the Gulf of Mexico, increasing bioenergy production, and providing C benefits. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:49:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-df319879e3cb4eafa976bac1c415e389 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:49:22Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-df319879e3cb4eafa976bac1c415e3892023-08-09T15:17:24ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262023-01-0118707400910.1088/1748-9326/acd708Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central USRobert W Malone0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5498-3864Anna Radke1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2632-3460Steph Herbstritt2Huaiqing Wu3Zhiming Qi4Bryan D Emmett5Matthew J Helmers6Lisa A Schulte7Gary W Feyereisen8Peter L O’Brien9John L Kovar10https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3503-234XNatalia Rogovska11Eileen J Kladivko12Kelly R Thorp13https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9168-875XTom C Kaspar14Dan B Jaynes15Douglas L Karlen16Tom L Richard17https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0833-4844USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaDepartment of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Penn State University , University Park, PA, United States of AmericaDepartment of Statistics, Iowa State University , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaDepartment of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University. , Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, CanadaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaDepartment of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaDepartment of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS Soil and Water Management Research Unit , St Paul, MN, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaDepartment of Agronomy, Purdue University , West Lafayette, IN, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center , Maricopa, AZ, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaUSDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment , Ames, IA, United States of AmericaDepartment of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Penn State University , University Park, PA, United States of AmericaCover crops (CCs) can reduce nitrogen (N) loss to subsurface drainage and can be reimagined as bioenergy crops for renewable natural gas production and carbon (C) benefits (fossil fuel substitution and C storage). Little information is available on the large-scale adoption of winter rye for these purposes. To investigate the impacts in the North Central US, we used the Root Zone Water Quality Model to simulate corn-soybean rotations with and without winter rye across 40 sites. The simulations were interpolated across a five-state area (IA, IL, IN, MN, and OH) with counties in the Mississippi River basin, which consists of ∼8 million ha with potential for rye CCs on artificially drained corn-soybean fields (more than 63 million ha total). Harvesting fertilized rye CCs before soybean planting in this area can reduce N loads to the Gulf of Mexico by 27% relative to no CCs, and provide 18 million Mg yr ^−1 of biomass-equivalent to 0.21 EJ yr ^−1 of biogas energy content or 3.5 times the 2022 US cellulosic biofuel production. Capturing the CO _2 in biogas from digesting rye in the region and sequestering it in underground geologic reservoirs could mitigate 7.5 million Mg CO _2 yr ^−1 . Nine clusters of counties (hotspots) were identified as an example of implementing rye as an energy CC on an industrial scale where 400 Gg yr ^−1 of rye could be sourced within a 121 km radius. Hotspots consisted of roughly 20% of the region’s area and could provide ∼50% of both the N loss reduction and rye biomass. These results suggest that large-scale energy CC adoption would substantially contribute to the goals of reducing N loads to the Gulf of Mexico, increasing bioenergy production, and providing C benefits.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd708bioenergydrainagenitrogencover cropsmodelsustainable intensification |
| spellingShingle | Robert W Malone Anna Radke Steph Herbstritt Huaiqing Wu Zhiming Qi Bryan D Emmett Matthew J Helmers Lisa A Schulte Gary W Feyereisen Peter L O’Brien John L Kovar Natalia Rogovska Eileen J Kladivko Kelly R Thorp Tom C Kaspar Dan B Jaynes Douglas L Karlen Tom L Richard Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central US Environmental Research Letters bioenergy drainage nitrogen cover crops model sustainable intensification |
| title | Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central US |
| title_full | Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central US |
| title_fullStr | Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central US |
| title_full_unstemmed | Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central US |
| title_short | Harvested winter rye energy cover crop: multiple benefits for North Central US |
| title_sort | harvested winter rye energy cover crop multiple benefits for north central us |
| topic | bioenergy drainage nitrogen cover crops model sustainable intensification |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd708 |
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