Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

School of Biology and Environmental Science

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy

Primary Supervisor

Professor David Rowlings
Position
Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science

Other QUT supervisors

Dr Taleta Bailey
Position
Research Fellow
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science

Overview

Nitrous oxide emitted from agricultural soils is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas with 265-times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, making reducing emissions a high priority for minimising environmental impacts of agriculture.

Crop residues may directly contribute to nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions as they break down, but it is difficult to partition N2O emissions from crop residues versus the background soil. Grain crop residues, including stems, leaves and roots remaining after harvest, differ in nitrogen content depending on plant species and parts, and therefore likely have differing contributions to nitrous oxide emissions. The default values used to calculate emissions of nitrous oxide from crop residues (emissions factors) do not account for this variation, and as such potentially over or underestimate nitrous oxide emissions. This project aims to fill this research gap by quantifying the contribution of residues of various crops (cereal, legume, oilseed) and plant components to soil nitrous oxide emissions. Our research so far has shown that factors such as the crop type, nitrogen content and crop age can significantly affect emissions, leading to further questions on how these can be used to develop management strategies that minimise the greenhouse gas footprint of Australia grains cropping.

Research activities

In this research, you will have opportunities to contribute to field sampling of greenhouse gas fluxes, use and maintenance of automated soil gas flux measurement systems, analysis of gas samples for N2O by gas chromatography or infrared lasers, and laboratory analysis of soil and plant samples.

Research skills

Understanding of soil greenhouse gas emissions, soil and gas sampling, data processing and analysis.

Outcomes

You will learn about soil greenhouse gas sampling techniques, soil chemistry, denitrification processes and how these relate to managing nitrogen in Australian grain cropping systems.

Start date

3 November, 2025

End date

20 February, 2026

Location

  • Gardens Point campus, field site at Gatton

Keywords

Contact

  • David Rowlings
  • Taleta Bailey

  • N/A

d.rowlings@qut.edu.au