Effects of winter cover crop on methane and nitrous oxide emission from paddy field

Static chamber-GC technique was employed to study the effects of different treatment winter cover crops, including no-tillage and directly sowing ryegrass (T1), no-tillage and directly sowing Chinese milk vetch (T2), tillage and transplanting rape (T3), no-tillage and directly sowing rape (T4), and fallowing (CK), on the CH4 and N2O emission from double cropping rice paddy field. During the growth period of test winter cover crops, the CH4 and N2O emission in treatments T1-T4 was significantly higher than that in CK (P < 0.01). Treatments T1 and T3 not only had the largest CH4 emission (0.60 and 0.88 g x m(-2)), but also had the largest N2O emission (0.20 and 0.23 g x m(-2), respectively). After the winter cover crops returned to field, the CH4 emission from early and late rice fields in treatments T1, T2, T3, and T4 was larger than that in CK. In early rice field, treatments T1 and T2 had the largest CH4 emission (21.70 and 20.75 g x m(-2)); while in late rice field, treatments T3 and T4 had the largest one (58.90 and 54.51 g x m(-2) respectively). Treatments T1-T4 also had larger N2O emission from early and late rice fields than the CK did. The N2O emission from early rice field in treatments T1, T2, T3, and T4 was increased by 53.7%, 12.2%, 46.3%, and 29.3%, and that from late rice field in corresponding treatments was increased by 28.6%, 3.8%, 34.3%, and 27.6%, respectively, compared with CK.