Environment and Ecology Research Vol. 1(4), pp. 196 - 204
DOI: 10.13189/eer.2013.010402
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Soil Temperature Manipulation to Study Global Warming Effects in Arable Land: Performance of Buried Heating-cable Method

Raveendra H. Patil ^1,*, Mette Laegdsmand ², Jørgen E. Olesen ³, John R. Porter ^4
1 University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32611-0570, USA
² Unisense FertiliTech A/S, Tueager 1, DK-8200, Aarhus N, Denmark
³ Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, 8830 Tjele, Denmark
⁴ University of Copenhagen, DK-2630 Taastrup, Denmark

ABSTRACT

Buried heating-cable method for manipulating soil temperature was designed and tested its performance in large concrete lysimeters grown with the wheat crop in Denmark. Soil temperature in heated plots was elevated by 5℃ compared with that in control by burying heating-cable at 0.1 m depth in a plough layer. Temperature sensors were placed at 0.05, 0.1 and 0.25 m depths in soil, and 0.1 m above the soil surface in all plots, which were connected to an automated data logger. Soil-warming setup was able to maintain a mean seasonal temperature difference of 5.0 ± 0.005℃ between heated and control plots at 0.1 m depth while the mean seasonal rise in soil temperature in the top 0.25 m depth (plough layer) was 3℃. Soil temperature in control plots froze (≤ 0℃) for 15 and 13 days respectively at 0.05 and 0.1 m depths while it did not in heated plots during the coldest period (Nov-Apr). This study clearly showed the efficacy of buried heating-cable technique in simulating soil temperature, and thus offers a simple, effective and alternative technique to study soil biogeochemical processes under warmer climates. This technique, however, decouples below-ground soil responses from that of above-ground vegetation response as this method heats only the soil. Therefore, using infrared heaters seems to represent natural climate warming (both air and soil) much more closely and may be used for future climate manipulation field studies.

KEYWORDS
Climate Change, Climate Manipulation, Soil Warming, Heating Cables, Soil Temperature, Agro-Ecosystems

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Raveendra H. Patil , Mette Laegdsmand , Jørgen E. Olesen , John R. Porter , "Soil Temperature Manipulation to Study Global Warming Effects in Arable Land: Performance of Buried Heating-cable Method," Environment and Ecology Research, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 196 - 204, 2013. DOI: 10.13189/eer.2013.010402.

(b). APA Format:
Raveendra H. Patil , Mette Laegdsmand , Jørgen E. Olesen , John R. Porter (2013). Soil Temperature Manipulation to Study Global Warming Effects in Arable Land: Performance of Buried Heating-cable Method. Environment and Ecology Research, 1(4), 196 - 204. DOI: 10.13189/eer.2013.010402.