Environmental Controls on the CO2 Exchange in a Peanut Field

Carbon dioxide exchanges were measured with the eddy-covariance method above a non-irrigated peanut field in Plains, Georgia. The experiment was conducted during the 2006 growing season (19 May-9 October) in order to understand the ecosystem-level carbon budget response to environmental parameters. In this work, we compare two approaches used to measure soil CO₂ efflux at the same site. The values of soil CO₂ efflux measured by the CO₂ gradient approach were higher than the results of the automated chamber approach. However, the results obtained from the two approaches showed similar patterns of diurnal changes and had a fairly linear relationship.