Research by Henrike Heinemann, Axel Don and Christopher Poeplau of the Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, published on 19th December 2024, found no saturation of soil carbon under long-term extreme manure additions.
The researchers said, “According to the concept of carbon saturation, the ability of soils to accumulate stabilised organic carbon is limited. The concept and its application are controversial. Therefore, the researchers wanted to test the theory using long-term field experiments.
“Soil samples were taken from four long-term field experiments with different and sometimes very extreme amounts of organic fertilisation. The carbon inputs were sometimes five times higher than in normal agricultural practice.
“Even under these artificial conditions, the experiments did not show any pronounced saturation behaviour. This suggests that carbon sequestration is mainly limited by the availability of carbon inputs from biomass.”
Read the full research, No saturation of soil carbon under long-term extreme manure additions