The College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) has launched a large-scale deep soil carbon coring project across its estate.
The project is the largest of its kind in Northern Ireland (NI) and samples carbon stocks up to 100cm deep in the soil. The project has completed in-field sampling across 1,200ha of active agricultural land covering a range of farming systems, environments and habitats.
CAFRE senior technologist Elizabeth Earle said that Northern Ireland’s agricultural soils are an important carbon store.
“The project has also taken soil cores from a representative area of woodlands, hedgerows, agroforestry and field margins across the farms to provide information on soil carbon stocks in biodiversity areas across the CAFRE estate,” Ms Earle stated.
CAFRE said optimising the condition of these soils will be fundamental for delivering against NI climate change targets, environmental sustainability, and ensuring efficient agricultural production.
CAFRE
The college stated that many studies of a similar nature have shown that optimising and protecting soil carbon stocks can have several positive benefits on water quality, soil fertility, nutrient use efficiency, and biodiversity.
CAFRE said the results from the project will establish an important baseline for deep soil carbon stocks, broad nutrients, and carbon properties at a field level for each of the CAFRE farm centres.
Earle added she hoped the project will build upon the work of the ArcZero NI project led by Professor John Gilliland, which also measured soil carbon stocks across a network of farms in NI in 2021.
This project was funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs carrier bag levy and delivered by the Sustainable Land Management Branch at CAFRE.
The college said the results of its new soil carbon coring project will be key to supporting farmers across NI in implementing technologies and practices to protect existing soil carbon stocks, enhance soil health, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production.
The new CAFRE project will also support the college in achieving its target of being 50% carbon neutral by 2030.
