Assessing the effects of resident vegetation as a regenerative soil management strategy on soil carbon storage and soil health in Canadian vineyard soils on Pelee Island

农业集约化需要重型机械、化肥和除草剂，这会造成污染、土壤侵蚀和温室气体，降低土壤肥力和生物多样性。种植覆盖作物和免耕农业是近年来一些葡萄园在葡萄藤行之间采用的再生土壤管理策略。由于健康的土壤含有丰富的碳，从而增加了土壤团聚体结构并作为营养物质的储存库，因此再生策略通常侧重于增加土壤中的碳。土壤碳储存还可以抵消温室气体排放，增加土壤微生物的生物多样性。然而，由于这些技术可能导致产量短期下降，土壤健康的改善需要数年时间才能观察到，因此一些农学家对采用这些策略存在抵制。佩利岛酒庄（Pelee Island Winery）的葡萄园经理是葡萄园覆盖种植的早期支持者。20多年前，他在他们的一些田地里种植了由本地多年生植物组成的“常驻植被”。假设引入常住植被后土壤碳增加，但不知道碳储量的大小或碳积累的速度是否达到峰值。新鲜的有机物质最初被纳入土壤中最不稳定的碳库，而更有弹性的土壤有机质的形成可以通过添加增强微生物矿化的肥料来限制。为了评估常驻植被作为增加土壤碳储量的一种机制，我们将使用稳定同位素技术来证明，来自常驻植被的一些碳添加到土壤中，与矿物质相关联，从而保护它们免受微生物腐烂。在不同的领域，常住植被的不同使用时间（2到21年）使Pelee岛葡萄园成为一个理想的自然实验室，可以评估1)常住植被对安大略省西南部钙质土壤中碳捕获的持续影响，2)这种做法对土壤健康和土壤微生物活动的影响——这些结果对Pelee岛酒庄指导未来影响葡萄生产和生产的土壤管理策略至关重要参与加拿大提议的碳税抵消制度。

Intensification of agriculture requires heavy machinery, fertilizers and herbicides which create pollution, soil erosion and green house gases and decrease soil fertility and biodiversity. The planting of cover crops and no-till agriculture are regenerative soil management strategies recently adopted between vine rows in some vineyards. Because healthy soils contain abundant carbon, which increases soil aggregate structure and acts as a repository for nutrients, regenerative strategies often focus on increasing carbon in the soils. Soil carbon storage also counters greenhouse gas emissions and increases soil microbe biodiversity. However, because these techniques can result in short-term decreased yield and improvements to soil health take years to observe, there is resistance among some agriculturalists to adopt these strategies. The manager of the vineyard for Pelee Island Winery was an early proponent of cover cropping in vineyards. Over 20 years ago he planted "resident vegetation" consisting of native perennials in some of their fields. It is assumed that soil carbon increased after introducing the resident vegetation, but the size of the carbon stocks or whether the rate of carbon accumulation has peaked is unknown. Fresh organic matter is initially incorporated into the most labile pool of carbon in the soil and the formation of more resilient soil organic matter can be limited by the addition of fertilizers which enhance microbial mineralization. To evaluate the use of resident vegetation as a mechanism of increasing soil carbon stocks we will use stable isotope techniques to demonstrate that some carbon added to the soil from the resident vegetation becomes associated with minerals where it is protected from microbial decay. The varying duration of the use of resident vegetation (2 to 21 years) in different fields makes the Pelee Island vineyard an ideal natural laboratory to assess 1) the ongoing effects of resident vegetation on carbon capture in the calcareous soils of south-western Ontario and 2) the impact this practice has had on soil health and soil microbial activity - these results are critical to Pelee Island Winery to direct future soil management strategies that affect grape production and for participation in Canada's proposed carbon tax offset system.