Amendment of straw with decomposing inoculants benefits the ecosystem carbon budget and carbon footprint in a subtropical wheat cropping field

The incorporation of straw with decomposing inoculants into soils has been widely recommended to sustain agricultural productivity. However, comprehensive analyses assessing the effects of straw combined with decomposing inoculants on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, net primary production (NPP), the net ecosystem carbon budget (NECB), and the carbon footprint (CF) in farmland ecosystems are scant. Here, we carried out a 2-year field study in a wheat cropping system with six treatments: rice straw (S), a straw-decomposing Bacillus subtilis inoculant (K), a straw-decomposing Aspergillus oryzae inoculant (Q), a combination of straw and Bacillus subtilis inoculant (SK), a combination of straw and Aspergillus oryzae inoculant (SQ), and a control with no rice straw or decomposing inoculant (Control). We found that all the treatments resulted in a positive NECB ranging between 838 and 5065 kg C ha−1. Relative to the Control, the S treatment increased CO2 emissions by 16 %, while considerably enhancing the NECB by 349 %. This difference might be attributed to the straw C input and an increase in plant productivity (NPP, 30 %). More importantly, in comparison to that in S, the NECB in SK and SQ significantly increased by 27–35 % due to the positive response of NPP to the decomposing inoculants. Although the combination of straw and decomposing inoculants yielded a 3 % increase in indirect GHG emissions, it also exhibited the lowest CF (0.18 kg CO2-eq kg−1 of grain). This result was attributed to the synergistic effects of straw and decomposing inoculants, which reduced direct N2O emissions and increased wheat productivity. Overall, the findings of the present study suggested that the combined amendment of straw and decomposing inoculants is an environmentally sustainable management practice in wheat cropping systems that can generate win–win scenarios through improvements in soil C stock, crop productivity, and GHG mitigation.