Nitrous oxide emissions from winter oilseed rape cultivation

•Strong variability of N2O emissions from WOSR cropping among sites and years.•A new rapeseed-specific N2O emission factor of 0.6% is proposed.•Reduction of N fertilization is possible without loss of oil yield. Winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L., WOSR) is the major oil crop cultivated in Europe. Rapeseed oil is predominantly used for production of biodiesel. The framework of the European Renewable Energy Directive requires that use of biofuels achieves GHG savings of at least 50% compared to use of fossil fuel starting in 2018. However, N2O field emissions are estimated using emission factors that are not specific for the crop and associated with strong uncertainty. N2O field emissions are controlled by N fertilization and dominate the GHG balance of WOSR cropping due to the high global warming potential of N2O. Thus, field experiments were conducted to increase the data basis and subsequently derive a new WOSR-specific emission factor. N2O emissions and crop yields were monitored for three years over a range of N fertilization intensities at five study sites representative of German WOSR production. N2O fluxes exhibited the typical high spatial and temporal variability in dependence on soil texture, weather and nitrogen availability. The annual N2O emissions ranged between 0.24kg and 5.48kgN2O-Nha−1a−1. N fertilization increased N2O emissions, particularly with the highest N treatment (240kgNha−1). Oil yield increased up to a fertilizer amount of 120kgNha−1, higher N-doses increased grain yield but decreased oil concentrations in the seeds. Consequently oil yield remained constant at higher N fertilization. Since, yield-related emission also increased exponentially with N surpluses, there is potential for reduction of the N fertilizer rate, which offers perspectives for the mitigation of GHG emissions. Our measurements double the published data basis of annual N2O flux measurements in WOSR. Based on this extended dataset we modeled the relationship between N2O emissions and fertilizer N input using an exponential model. The corresponding new N2O emission factor was 0.6% of applied fertilizer N for a common N fertilizer amount under best management practice in WOSR production (200kgNha−1a−1). This factor is substantially lower than the linear IPCC Tier 1 factor (EF1) of 1.0% and other models that have been proposed.