Biochar's dual role in greenhouse gas emissions: Nitrogen fertilization dependency and mitigation potential

Biochar was popularly used for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in vegetable production, but using biochar does not necessarily guarantee a reduction in GHG emissions. Herein, it's meaningful to elucidate the intricate interplay among biochar properties, soil characteristics, and GHG emissions in vegetable production to provide valuable insights for informed and effective mitigation strategies. Therefore, in current research, a meta-analysis of 43 publications was employed to address these issues. The boost-regression analysis results indicated that the performance of biochar in inhibiting N2O emissions was most affected by the N application rate both in high and low N application conditions. Besides, biochar had dual roles and showed well performance in reducing GHG emissions under low N input (≤300 kg N ha−1), while having the opposite effect during high N input (>300 kg N ha−1). Specifically, applying biochar under low N fertilization input could obviously reduce soil N2O emissions, CO2 emissions, and CH4 emissions by 18.7 %, 17.9 %, and 16.9 %, respectively. However, the biochar application under high N fertilization input significantly (P < 0.05) increased soil N2O emissions, CO2 emissions, and CH4 emissions by 39.7 %, 43.0 %, and 27.7 %, respectively. Except for the N application rate, the soil pH, SOC, biochar C/N ratio, biochar pH, and biochar pyrolysis temperature are also the key factors affecting the control of GHG emissions in biochar-amended soils. The findings of this study will contribute to deeper insights into the potential application of biochar in regulating GHG under consideration of N input, offering scientific evidence and guidance for sustainable agriculture management.