Browsing by Author "Hernández Berrier, Gabriel Renan"

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    Growth, management and soil carbon sequestration modeling on Southern Chile’s agricultural grasslands
    (2025) Hernández Berrier, Gabriel Renan; Meza, Francisco Javier; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Facultad de Agronomía y Sistemas Naturales
    Carbon sequestration is a natural eco-physiological plant process. It sustains primary productivity, implementing crops and forage production. It has become a key tool for climate change mitigation (reducing CO2 concentrations) and for achieving sustainable development objectives defined by the United Nations. This research focusses on soil carbon sequestration in grazing grassland systems. Simulations were run obtaining growth, management and carbon sequestration dynamics of hypothetical southern Chilean grassland simplified systems located in the Entre Lagos region under 10 years periods (2015-2024 and 2030-2039). Climatic and edaphic databases were used in the SIMPLE model for simulations, alongside an extra module allowing modelling of different grazing methods: non-grazing, continuous and rotational grazing managements. Root biomass results were used to simulate soil organic carbon pools and their growth through the RothC model. Afterwards, databases extracted from the Center for Climate and Resilience Science were used for simulations under RCP 8.5 climate change scenario. Results show aboveground primary productivity to be three times bigger under rotational grazing management than continuous management, including a 50% difference in carbon sequestration potential, with rotational grazing achieving 6.66 Mg·ha-1 of total carbon sequestration. Climate change scenarios show increasing productivity at all levels, increasing root biomass in 1.08 Mg·ha-1, enhancing carbon sequestration in 0.47 Mg·ha-1 and achieving a new stocking rate of 2 AU·ha-1.