Nitrification represents the bottle-neck of sheep urine patch N2O emissions from extensively grazed organic soils.

Extensively grazed grasslands are understudied in terms of their contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock production. Mountains, moorlands and heath occupy 18% of the UK land area, however, in situ studies providing high frequency N 2 O emissions from sheep urine deposited to such areas are lacking. Organic soils typical of these regions may provide substrates for denitrification-related N 2 O emissions, however, acidic and anoxic conditions may inhibit nitrification (and associated emissions from nitrification and denitrification). We hypothesised urine N 2 O-N emission factors (EFs) would be lower than the UK country-specific and IPCC default value for urine, which is based on lowland measurements. Using automated GHG sampling chambers, N 2 O emissions were determined from real sheep urine (930 kg N ha−1) and artificial urine (920 kg N ha−1) applied in summer, and from an artificial urine treatment (1120 kg N ha−1) and a combined NO 3 − and glucose treatment (106 kg N ha−1; 213 kg C ha−1) in autumn. The latter treatment provided an assessment of the soils capacity for denitrification under non-substrate limiting conditions. The artificial urine-N 2 O EF was 0.01 ± 0.00% of the N applied in summer and 0.00 ± 0.00% of the N applied in autumn. The N 2 O EF for real sheep urine applied in summer was 0.01 ± 0.02%. A higher flux was observed in only one replicate of the real urine treatment, relating to one chamber where an increase in soil solution NO 3 − was observed. No lag phase in N 2 O emission was evident following application of the NO 3 − and glucose treatment, which emitted 0.69 ± 0.15% of the N applied. This indicates nitrification rates are the bottle-neck for N 2 O emissions in upland organic soils. We calculated the potential impact of using hill-grazing specific urine N 2 O EFs on the UK inventory of N 2 O emissions from sheep excreta, and found a reduction of ca. 43% in comparison to the use of a country-specific excretal EF. Unlabelled Image • Mountains, moorlands and heath occupy 18% of the UK land area. • These areas are understudied in terms of N 2 O emissions from livestock urine. • N 2 O-N EFs for sheep urine were determined across two seasonal grazing periods. • Low rates of nitrification of urine-N resulted in extremely low N 2 O-N EFs (<0.01%). • National inventory sheep excretal N 2 O-N estimates reduced by 43% using new EFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]