REGULAR ARTICLE Impact of pre-harvest burning versus trash conservation on soil carbon and nitrogen stocks on a sugarcane plantation in the Brazilian Atlantic forest region Érika Flavia Machado Pinheiro & Eduardo Lima & Marcos Bacis Ceddia & Segundo Urquiaga & Bruno J. R. Alves & Robert M. Boddey Received: 3 December 2009 / Accepted: 4 February 2010 / Published online: 2 March 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract Owing to the increased demand for ethanol biofuel from sugar cane, the area planted to this crop in Brazil has increased from 4.8 to 9.5 Mha since 2000. At the same time there has been pressure from environ- mental groups and others to cease the pre-harvest burning of cane, and today over 40% of the crop is harvested without burning, thus conserving the trash on the soil surface. While most trash decomposes during the year, it is generally assumed that this transition from burning to trash conservation will have benefits for cane productivity and increase soil carbon stocks. To investigate the possible benefits of this change of practice an experiment was carried out in the state of Espírito Santo, south-eastern Brazil, to investigate the long-term effects of the practice of pre-harvested burning compared to trash conservation on soil fertility and soil C and N stocks. The results showed that over a 14-year period, trash conservation marginally decreased soil acidity and significantly increased soil C and N stocks in 0–10 cm depth interval. Although the trash conservation treatment accumulated 13 Mg C ha -1 more than the burned treatment, this difference was not statistically different. However, the stocks of N to 100 cm depth were 900 kg ha -1 higher under the trash conservation treatment and this difference was statis- tically significant. The 13 C abundance data suggested that where trash was conserved, more soil C was derived from the sugar cane than from the original native vegetation. Keywords 13 C . Carbon accumulation . Green manure . Pre-harvest burning . Soil organic matter . Sugarcane . Trash conservation Introduction Brazil is the world’ s largest producer of sugarcane. In 2008 a total of 8.2 Mha of cane fields were harvested for the production of over 27 billion litres of ethanol for fuelling light vehicles and 30.8 million tonnes (Tg) sugar. Since the year 2000 cane production has increased from 255 Tg to over 653 Tg in 2008 (projected to be 660 Tg in 2009), and taking into account the fields recently planted, this crop nowa- days covers just over 9.5 Mha (IBGE-SIDRA 2009; UNICA 2009). The large increase has been stimulated by the international interest in bio-ethanol as a vehicle fuel (ethanol exports reached 5.4 billion litres in 2008) and the introduction of FlexFuel (Otto cycle) motors which can run on any mixture of hydrous Plant Soil (2010) 333:71–80 DOI 10.1007/s11104-010-0320-7 Responsible editor: Elizabeth M. Baggs. É. F. Machado Pinheiro : E. Lima : M. B. Ceddia Departamento de Solos, Instituto de Agronomia da UFRRJ, BR 465, km 7, 23890-000 Seropédica, RJ, Brazil S. Urquiaga : B. J. R. Alves : R. M. Boddey (*) Embrapa – Agrobiologia, Rodovia BR 465, km 7, Caixa Postal 74505, 23890-000 Seropédica, RJ, Brazil e-mail: bob@cnpab.embrapa.br