For those who've not yet heard John speak about his research at the Lands at Dowth in County Meath and the ArcZero Project up here, then here are the slides from one of his recent presentations. There's some really fascinating data coming out of the research on how grassland based ruminant livestock systems can deliver net zero. They are putting a lot of emphasis on measuring and baselining farm carbon emissions and sequestration in order to improve management but also to back up net zero claims based on real data. There's a large amount of ground covered in the slides but some key focus areas are as follows:
- the importance of soil pH to soil carbon sequestration rates
- the importance of multispecies swards to reducing artificial nitrogen use and improving soil biology
- the importance of trees in the farmed landscape and the role of silvopastoral systems in improving farm carbon stocks
On one of the ArcZero farms up here, the data shows there are 6631t of carbon in the dairy farm's soils and 254t in the farms trees and hedges. Do you know how much carbon is stored on your farm?
It would be great to hear your thoughts on how you might apply some of this thinking into your farming system...
How do I open the sides Will? This sounds really interesting thanks for telling us about it.