Influencing factors of CH4 emissions from double cropping paddy fields in Hunan Province, China based on Meta-analysis

Abstract: Warming climate has been a global concern. Methane is an important greenhouse gas. Double rice cropping system in Hunan province contributes a large proportion of the national rice production. In this study, we studied the effect of agricultural managements of rice on methane emissions from double cropping paddy fields in Hunan Province, China based on Meta-analysis method. Only studies designed as side-by-side paired field experiments were included in this study. Field management practices, treatments, and controls were described in detail in each study, and the location of the experiment was provided. If seasonal accumulative CH4 emission fluxes were not directly provided, these values were calculated by multiplying time and mean CH4 emissions by the measurement period. A total of 53 published peer-reviewed papers published before 2018were obtained by reference retrieval. From them, 840 groups of data were drawn. The management measures included crop rotation, symbiosis ecosystem, tillage, nitrogen fertilizer input, organic manure and residue retention. The control and treatment groups were fallow versus winter crops, paddy-rice system versus rice-duck and rice-fish systems, conventional versus no tillage, no fertilizer-N input versus fertilizer-N input, no manure input versus fertilizer-N and manure input, and fertilizer-N input versus residue retention. Natural log of response ratio was used as the effect size in the random effect meta-analysis. Results showed that CH4 emissions from both early and late rice accounted for 97.9% of annual CH4 emissions, and more CH4 emissions from late rice was observed than that for early rice. In the double rice cropping system, adding winter crops could significantly increase CH4 emissions from double rice season by 43.88% (P < 0.05) compared to winter fallow. Moreover, the increase in methane emissions from early rice was significantly higher than that from late rice. Symbiosis ecosystem of rice (i.e., with ducks or fishes) and adopting no-till significantly decreased CH4 emissions by 37.02% and 26.84% (P < 0.05), respectively. The decrease in the emission from early rice field was much higher than that from late rice field. As for yield-scaled emission, application of N fertilizer decreased yield-scaled CH4 emissions by 40.01% (P < 0.05) mainly due to the yields increased by 73.87% (P < 0.05). Additionally, organic fertilizer application and residue retention increased 68.11% and 71.80% (P < 0.05) of yield-scaled CH4 emissions without impacting the rice yield. The results suggested adopting symbiosis ecosystem rice production or no-till along with optimized N input is conducive to balancing rice yield and CH4 emissions from fields with double rice cropping system in Hunan province.