Application: Soil Flux
Advancing N2O flux chamber measurement techniques in nutrient-poor ecosystems - Triches et al. 2024
Nitrous oxide (N₂O), the third most important greenhouse gas, has risen from 273 to 336 ppb since 1800, mainly from agriculture. Nutrient-poor soils, including sub-Arctic peatlands, can emit or consume N₂O — yet low fluxes are hard to measure reliably.Using the portable Aeris N₂O/CO₂ analyzer with custom light/dark chambers, we quantified low N₂O fluxes in a sub-Arctic peatland:
+12.9 ± 28.4 nmol m⁻² h⁻¹ (light) and −46.1 ± 38.2 nmol m⁻² h⁻¹ (dark).
Most fluxes (74–88%) exceeded the ~14.5 nmol m⁻² h⁻¹ detection limit.The Aeris analyzer enabled accurate detection of low fluxes that traditional GC methods systematically underestimate. Fast-response portable N₂O analyzers like Aeris are ideal for studying subtle soil–atmosphere N₂O exchange in natural ecosystems.
Gas Chromatography vs. Mid-Infrared Laser Absorption Spectroscopy: A comparison of methods for measuring greenhouse gas fluxes from arable soils - Aumer & Moller et al. 2025
Accurate measurement of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O concentrations in closed soil chambers is critical for reliable greenhouse gas flux estimates. This study directly compares Gas Chromatography (GC) (syringe sampling + lab analysis) with real-time mid-infrared laser absorption spectroscopy (LAS) connected to chambers.
Results showed:
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Excellent agreement for CO₂ (nRMSE: 5.8–16.7 %)
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Very good agreement for N₂O (nRMSE: 14.6–24.6 %)
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Poor agreement for CH₄ (nRMSE: 88–95 %)
LAS demonstrated superior precision, reliably detecting significant N₂O and CH₄ fluxes (including low uptake) that GC missed or deemed insignificant — especially important for CH₄ consumption in arable soils. Fast, high-resolution LAS analyzers provide more accurate and sensitive quantification of soil greenhouse gas fluxes compared with traditional GC methods.
Genetic design of soybean hosts and bradyrhizobial endosymbionts reduces N2O emissions from soybean farming - Haruko Imaizumi-Anraku 2025
Soybeans fix atmospheric N₂ via symbiosis with rhizobia, and strains with high nitrous oxide (N₂O)-reducing (N₂OR) activity can help lower N₂O emissions from agricultural soils. Field inoculation often fails due to competition from native rhizobia with low/no N₂OR activity.We overcome this by exploiting natural soybean–rhizobia incompatibility: Rj2 and GmNNL1 genes block infection by bradyrhizobia expressing the effector NopP. Combining a soybean line carrying both Rj2 and GmNNL1 with nopP-deficient bradyrhizobia enables preferential nodulation by high-N₂OR strains. This optimized symbiosis system markedly reduces N₂O emissions in both field and lab trials, offering a promising, sustainable strategy for low-emission soybean production.
Contrasting effects of plant and animal residue biochars on soil health, carbon stability, and crop yield - Sapkota et al. 2025
This study investigated the effects of biochars produced from cattle manure (CM), hemp wood (HW), and pecan wood (PW) applied at 1% w/w to soil, assessing their impacts on soil health, sorghum yield, greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon mineralization kinetics. Soil emissions of CO₂ and N₂O were measured in the greenhouse using MIRA Pico mid-infrared analyzer from Aeris Technologies for N₂O. While plant-derived biochars, particularly PW, significantly increased soil organic carbon storage and supported greater microbial abundances such as gram-positive bacteria and actinobacteria, manure biochar enhanced cation exchange capacity, fungal-to-bacterial ratio, saprophyte populations, and ultimately boosted crop grain yield by 47% compared to the control. Carbon mineralization was lowest in HW-amended soils and highest in CM, with plant residue biochars following a first-order kinetic model and CM best described by a double exponential model, highlighting that plant-based biochars promote long-term carbon stability whereas manure biochar favors nutrient availability and immediate productivity gains due to differences in their compositional makeup.