Abstract. Because of their controlled nature, the presence of independent replicates, and their known management history long-term field experiments are key to the understanding of factors controlling soil carbon. Together with isotope measurements, they provide profound insight into soil carbon dynamics. For soil radiocarbon, an important tracer for understanding these dynamics, in-field variability across replicates is usually not accounted for, hence, a relevant source of uncertainty for quantifying turnover rates is missing. Here, for the first time, radiocarbon measurements of independent field replicates, and for different layers, of soil from the 60 years old controlled field experiment ZOFE in Zurich, Switzerland, is used to address this issue. 14C variability was the same across three different treatments and for three different soil layers between surface and 90 cm depths. On average, in-field variability in 14C content was 12 times the analytical error but still, on a relative basis, smaller than that of in-field soil carbon concentration variability. Despite a relative homogeneous variability across the field and along the soil profile, the curved nature of the relationship between radiocarbon content and modelled carbon mean residence time suggests that the absolute error, without consideration of in-field variability, introduced to soil carbon turnover time calculations increases with soil depth. In our field experiment findings on topsoil carbon turnover variability would, if applied to subsoil, tend to underweight turnover variability even if in-field variability of the subsoil isotope concentration is not higher. Together, in-field variability in radiocarbon is an important component in an overall uncertainty assessment of soil carbon turnover.
<sup>14</sup>C in cropland soil of a long-term field trial – experimental variability and implications for estimating carbon turnover
