Carbon capture on grass land

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
There's probably little ground vegetation under those Sycamore canopies though to hold the soil together and the cows spend easy too many days standing in the same spot because it's set stocked. It could be so different.

the deep humus/OM extends several meters into the grassland from the trees, and a lot of the places I'm thinking of would be unstocked for months on end, with stock out on the common. but the minute you set a foot on em come autumn, it's poached.
Each to there own but I think it’s you that’s deluded, we have been sold a pup by the agricultural support industry to keep their pockets full and ours empty. Wind back a bit, cut your inputs like feet, seed, sprays, feed, machinery, fuel etc etc and it’s surprising how much it adds up to. If you then get closer to your market and cut out a few of the middle men the output income increases as well. Throw in Gov funding and it’s a win win, you may not have a lot of bragging rights or the biggest tractor in the parish but your land will be in a better hod and your bank balance also

I'm happy to be shown where/how we can continually capture soil carbon without it becoming too fragile to use- and even then, how'd do stop the wildlife bringing it up. Everywhere I look, there's a ceiling- unless its waterlogged.

You know very well that I'm right at the opposite end of the 'spend to farm culture @Old Tip, never reseed, hardly use fert, see reps off with bitey dogs, and happy to puddle about the slow lane.......and my bank balance already reflects this.
But it matters to me that we base our assumptions, and lobby, on what is realistic.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Not got soil samples to hand but the land is poisoned to death with heavy metal contaminates,

Do you know what heavy metals, and the levels?

I remember reading some letting particulars for a dairy farm (Staffs or Derbyshire area iirc) a few years back. There was one block that had high levels of lead in the soil and the only thing that could be safely grown there was considered to be maize. Apparently grass growing there was toxic for livestock.

Likely not a problem on your block, but something to consider?
 

Gulli

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
the deep humus/OM extends several meters into the grassland from the trees, and a lot of the places I'm thinking of would be unstocked for months on end, with stock out on the common. but the minute you set a foot on em come autumn, it's poached.


I'm happy to be shown where/how we can continually capture soil carbon without it becoming too fragile to use- and even then, how'd do stop the wildlife bringing it up. Everywhere I look, there's a ceiling- unless its waterlogged.

You know very well that I'm right at the opposite end of the 'spend to farm culture @Old Tip, never reseed, hardly use fert, see reps off with bitey dogs, and happy to puddle about the slow lane.......and my bank balance already reflects this.
But it matters to me that we base our assumptions, and lobby, on what is realistic.
The majority of soils in this country aren't peat though, I'm sure there is an upper limit for storing carbon but most farms and farmers are nowhere near it.
In some respects I couldn't care less about saving the environment, I'd rather improve my farm, carbon captured in this process is a helpful byproduct but not doing it because there's an upper limit seems foolish.
If all my soil turns to peat and I can't drive my current tractor on it, it won't matter as we'll all be using little robots that don't mark the soil by then
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
The majority of soils in this country aren't peat though, I'm sure there is an upper limit for storing carbon but most farms and farmers are nowhere near it.
In some respects I couldn't care less about saving the environment, I'd rather improve my farm, carbon captured in this process is a helpful byproduct but not doing it because there's an upper limit seems foolish.
If all my soil turns to peat and I can't drive my current tractor on it, it won't matter as we'll all be using little robots that don't mark the soil by then

Peat is what it is because the ground it grows in is waterlogged. 'Historic' peat, where for whatever reason the ground is now drier/no longer conducive to growing sphagnum is another thing - and there's rows coming about that too.

I absolutely agree it's a good idea to encourage OM into your soil, for whatever reward. Although I don't know what 'regenerative' farming means, apparently I've been doing quite a lot of it for all my days.
And if ELMs or whatever encourages it...good. Take the money. And if it pokes the militant vegans in the eye...better still.

But, the overall conversation about soil OM and sequestering carbon seems blind to a natural ceiling that is evident in nature the world over.
Look in the churchyard.
A 1000 year old church yard might have paths seemingly 'sunk' because the 'mouldering sod' infamously has ever more deadies planted in it, raising it 18" - 24"
But the raw maths, coupled to the fact that the grass on the sod is effectively in continual fallow, suggests the soil should be many feet deep. and yet is not.
I'm pretty sure that invertebrate life, and its continual cycling, is what's at work there,
as it must be in 'old growth forest', and will be in carefully managed farmland soils.


Meanwhile, we're all still releasing carbon every time we fire up the car/tractor/chainsaw/lawnmower/leaf blower...that was captured 350 million years ago.
 

JSmith

Member
Livestock Farmer
Do you know what heavy metals, and the levels?

I remember reading some letting particulars for a dairy farm (Staffs or Derbyshire area iirc) a few years back. There was one block that had high levels of lead in the soil and the only thing that could be safely grown there was considered to be maize. Apparently grass growing there was toxic for livestock.

Likely not a problem on your block, but something to consider?
Sorry Neil no I don’t exactly know what metals but have you ever heard the element song!!
 
Location
Norfolk
As carbon capture and foot print are the latest craze was going to incorporate this into a business plan/tender that I might be doing on a block of ground and this is something that would be on the tick list for the landlord! So if I started with four hundred acres of maize stubble that I was going to grass down and plant fodder crops, put hedges back, environmental features and so on... how do I calculate the capturing element of grass and said fodder crops compared to a featureless monoculture maize ground?? When grassland captures carbon does it store it within the root, plant, leaf or??? An if rotationally grazed does this increase the amount of carbon that can be captured, as in the more you graze it the more the regrowth captures?? Do kale an turnips an such like have the same capacity for carbon capturing?? Any suggestions or a link to plain talking explanation gratefully received!! Tia

The cool farm tool and the farm carbon tool kit can both be found online and contain calculators for assessing the carbon balance of Farms.

if you take a look at these you may find that they don’t answer your questions directly because carbon capture is hard to quantify and relies on many variables.

I certainly think you will do well to demonstrate you have home to the greatest possible lengths to prove what your system could achieve.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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