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Farm science.
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Note : 2nd place after rice production.
The world is all about microbes from fertilizer to health.
Here's the rest of the article.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/gut-bacteria-could-be-key-producing-tastier-cow-s-milk0 -
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Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »For those interested in multi species awards, it appears that cutting may lead to higher yields and grazing to lower yields.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gfs.12440#.XUG3iv_GbLY.twitter
Early days yet though.
I would like a monkey and a turnip award please!
Pity the vampires have to charge for access to that article. I wonder does the diesel spent cutting it substitute for the increase in carbon gained in the increased growth?0 -
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Say my name wrote: »I would like a monkey and a turnip award please!
Pity the vampires have to charge for access to that article. I wonder does the diesel spent cutting it substitute for the increase in carbon gained in the increased growth?
you'll probably find most of the info here
http://www.asaireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Bridget-Lynch-Connie-Grace-Sheep-ASA-meeting-21.01.16.pdf0 -
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Say my name wrote: »Ah he's living in Cork!
That's Cork near Fargo in South Dakota? I never knew ...
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Say my name wrote: »
Thanks to Say my name for posting this.
It shows Ireland has the highest carbon levels (in the top 20cm of soil) in the EU - it's like winning the Eurovision all over again
This is suprising when you consider that Ireland has the lowest forest cover of all European countries, according to Teagasc. Land cover here is 11% while over 40% of all land in the 33 member states is wooded.
Mind you, our hedges are probably not included in this and they probably have more biodiversity than our Sitka Spruce plantations
Our peatlands are one reason we scored so well, orignally 17% of Ireland was peatland, now less than a quarter remains intact
But as well as peatlands, we have the most pasture in Europe by a long long way, more than 67 per cent of the country is covered in natural grassland, followed by the United Kingdom with 40 per cent, the Netherlands at 38 per cent, Luxembourg at 37 per cent and Belgium at 32 per cent.
So is it time we had a more informed conversation about the role of grassland in sequestering carbon?
If I'm reading the study right, comparing Irish and UK soils, we sequester about 150 more tons of CO2 per acre than the UK
Below are my workings - please let me know if anything doesn't look correct.
From the survey
Irish soil 14.5% SOC per kg of soil
1 acre of soil to 20cm depth will have approx 810 tons of soil per acre (using bulk density of 1g/cm3)
For Ireland 810 * 14.5% is 117 tons of carbon per acre, *44/12 to get CO2 equivalent of 430 tons of CO2 per acre
For UK 810 * 9.5% is 77 tons of carbon per acre, *44/12 to get CO2 equivalent of 280 tons of CO2 per acre
A difference of about 150 tons of CO2 per acre :eek:
This is the same as the difference between a badly depleted tillage soil (SOC of 2%) and a more fertile soil (SOC 7%), again around 150 tons of CO2 per acre
Looking at this from a regenerative point of view this is where it gets interesting.
I took the average kg of beef produced on Suckling to Beef farms
613kg Liveweight Produced (kg/ha)
Source: 2017-Drystock-eProfit-Monitor-Book
And the average level of emissions across all farms was 11.9 kg CO2 equivalent per kg beef of live-weight produced
Source: Teagasc National Farm Survey 2017 Sustainability Report
Converting from hectare to acre, this gives a CO2 equivalent per acre of 2950kg
(11.9*613)/2.47
Now taking an extreme example, if a farmer took a worn out tillage farm with SOC of 2% and converted it to grassland and over time slowly raised the SOC to 7%, the beef produced would still be carbon neutral, even if it took 50 years, and there's a growing body of evidence that regeneratively managed beef on pasture can increase organic matter levels a much greater rate than this, at rates of somewhere between 1/4 an 1/2 a percent per year, thus making the beef a net carbon sync, and restoring the soil in between 10 and 20 years.
What are people's thoughts?0 -
Thanks to Say my name for posting this.
It shows Ireland has the highest carbon levels (in the top 20cm of soil) in the EU - it's like winning the Eurovision all over again
This is suprising when you consider that Ireland has the lowest forest cover of all European countries, according to Teagasc. Land cover here is 11% while over 40% of all land in the 33 member states is wooded.
Mind you, our hedges are probably not included in this and they probably have more biodiversity than our Sitka Spruce plantations
Our peatlands are one reason we scored so well, orignally 17% of Ireland was peatland, now less than a quarter remains intact
But as well as peatlands, we have the most pasture in Europe by a long long way, more than 67 per cent of the country is covered in natural grassland, followed by the United Kingdom with 40 per cent, the Netherlands at 38 per cent, Luxembourg at 37 per cent and Belgium at 32 per cent.
So is it time we had a more informed conversation about the role of grassland in sequestering carbon?
If I'm reading the study right, comparing Irish and UK soils, we sequester about 150 more tons of CO2 per acre than the UK
Below are my workings - please let me know if anything doesn't look correct.
From the survey
Irish soil 14.5% SOC per kg of soil
1 acre of soil to 20cm depth will have approx 810 tons of soil per acre (using bulk density of 1g/cm3)
For Ireland 810 * 14.5% is 117 tons of carbon per acre, *44/12 to get CO2 equivalent of 430 tons of CO2 per acre
For UK 810 * 9.5% is 77 tons of carbon per acre, *44/12 to get CO2 equivalent of 280 tons of CO2 per acre
A difference of about 150 tons of CO2 per acre :eek:
This is the same as the difference between a badly depleted tillage soil (SOC of 2%) and a more fertile soil (SOC 7%), again around 150 tons of CO2 per acre
Looking at this from a regenerative point of view this is where it gets interesting.
I took the average kg of beef produced on Suckling to Beef farms
613kg Liveweight Produced (kg/ha)
Source: 2017-Drystock-eProfit-Monitor-Book
And the average level of emissions across all farms was 11.9 kg CO2 equivalent per kg beef of live-weight produced
Source: Teagasc National Farm Survey 2017 Sustainability Report
Converting from hectare to acre, this gives a CO2 equivalent per acre of 2950kg
(11.9*613)/2.47
Now taking an extreme example, if a farmer took a worn out tillage farm with SOC of 2% and converted it to grassland and over time slowly raised the SOC to 7%, the beef produced would still be carbon neutral, even if it took 50 years, and there's a growing body of evidence that regeneratively managed beef on pasture can increase organic matter levels a much greater rate than this, at rates of somewhere between 1/4 an 1/2 a percent per year, thus making the beef a net carbon sync, and restoring the soil in between 10 and 20 years.
What are people's thoughts?
Decent well drained land would have a bulk density of about 0.65 and even in the long term 5-6% soil organic carbon would be high for grassland. Multiply it by 3.something to convert to co2 equivalent. Will come in at a bit less than your figures.
If interest was given on stored carbon say 1%, it would also drive things more in the right way0 -
yosemitesam1 wrote: »Decent well drained land would have a bulk density of about 0.65 and even in the long term 5-6% soil organic carbon would be high for grassland. Multiply it by 3.something to convert to co2 equivalent. Will come in at a bit less than your figures.
Thanks yosemite, wasn't sure on the bulk density, saw a few figures mentioned and aimed for one in the middle.
That will take the sequestration figures back by a third.
But regarding soil carbon levels there's probably scope to be a little on the high side. I got my soils tested for Organic matter when I was doing the soil tests for Glas and they were a good bit higher than that. The carbon levels were around 10% OC, (17% OM), (mostly clay soils). Probably down to nutrient management, they would get a good bit of slurry, but little to no bag NPK. I've spoken to some people in Organics with higher levels than that again so it is possible to have well managed soils with high levels of carbon.
Also Teagasc were following the IPCC methodology for CO2 equivalents and use 25 as the factor for methane emissions, I've read somewhere that 12 may be a more realistic number for pasture based livestock, so there's scope for the CO2 emissions figure to be lower as well, so that might help balance things out as well.
Definitely would help focus minds, possibly could be a good way to incentivise an environmental scheme.If interest was given on stored carbon say 1%, it would also drive things more in the right way0 -
Just be aware that converting an om measurement to organic carbon isn't accurate. The only accurate way is to measure it directly.Thanks yosemite, wasn't sure on the bulk density, saw a few figures mentioned and aimed for one in the middle. That will take the sequestration figures back by a third.
But regarding soil carbon levels there's probably scope to be a little on the high side. I got my soils tested for Organic matter when I was doing the soil tests for Glas and they were a good bit higher than that. The carbon levels were around 10% OC, (17% OM), (mostly clay soils). Probably down to nutrient management, they would get a good bit of slurry, but little to no bag NPK. I've spoken to some people in Organics with higher levels than that again so it is possible to have well managed soils with high levels of carbon.
Also Teagasc were following the IPCC methodology for CO2 equivalents and use 25 as the factor for methane emissions, I've read somewhere that 12 may be a more realistic number for pasture based livestock, so there's scope for the CO2 emissions figure to be lower as well, so that might help balance things out as well.
Definitely would help focus minds, possibly could be a good way to incentivise an environmental scheme.
Your soil sounds nearly peaty and the conversion factor would probably be lower than a brown earth type soil. Heavy land probably has more potential for higher soc in the surface layers. Mine here is 5.95% compared to 4.4% on a neighbours more intensive farm.0 -
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