Using Tea Bags to Test Decomposition Rates in an Agroforestry System
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2020-05
Authors
Solanki, Neel
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Russell, Ann
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Abstract
The USDA defines agroforestry as “the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and/or animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits”. Agroforestry systems are being widely studied across the world to understand their role in creating sustainable and resilient agriculture systems. Decomposition involves the processes, both physical and chemical, by which dead organic matter, also known as detritus or litter is reduced to its elemental chemical constituents. Aerts (1997) reports that, as such, decomposition is a crucial process in carbon and nutrient cycling and plays an important role in the global carbon budgets. And McClaughter at al (1985) found that increasing rates of decomposition can also lead to greater nitrogen availability in soils, for plant use. For this project we used the Tea Bag test (Keuskamp et al. 2013) to understand how land use affects the decomposition of different litter types in agroforestry systems. 5 different treatments: Fig monoculture, Undisturbed Savannah, Vegetable Polyculture, Vetiver grass and Bunds were compared on a 1-year old agroforestry system. Our results indicated that there was no significant difference between the land use treatments after 1-year post establishment and follow up studies would help track if this changes with time.
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