Carbon farming: what are the challenges and benefits?

[dafnesartorio]

Hi everyone,
I’m currently looking into the topic of carbon farming and would love to speak to farmers and farming organizations who are interested in this topic.

I really want to know what are the challenges you guys see to adopt those practices and also how benefitial do you think this could be for farmers, financially speaking.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance !

 

[steveR]

Possibly you are better off joining in with some existing threads with questions or thoughts on more specific areas that are of interest. There is a wealth of expertise here!

The biggest challenge surely, is making a fundamental change in a farming practice financially viable, and that it can also seen to be financially viable for a commercial farmer?

 

[awkward]

I don't know about the UK, but here we will be regulated in a manner that will look good on paper ,appeal to the public and be marketing led, while creating jobs for the (boys). Doing it right will only benefit the consumer and the producer.

 

[Cutlerstom]

Seen this from NRM today. Is a carbon report like this what is required for us to trade carbon transparently? Or do you think measuring it is too hit and miss and best off just going by practices?

 

[Simon C]

Seen this from NRM today. Is a carbon report like this what is required for us to trade carbon transparently? Or do you think measuring it is too hit and miss and best off just going by practices?

Nice to have a bit more detail in this test result but what is missing in the actual weight of carbon per hectare. It can be worked out from the % C and the bulk density but then only tells you how much in the top 30 cm. There is a heck of a lot of C down there deeper than that. Trouble then is you want to do annual tests to monitor increases but wandering around a field in a W pattern collecting samples is never going to accurately represent an average for the field each year. How many samples would it need to to get a proper representation of even one hectare, 50, 500, 1000?

Interesting that all fields are near as dammit C:N 10, which is what what we always work on.

 

[Cutlerstom]

Nice to have a bit more detail in this test result but what is missing in the actual weight of carbon per hectare. It can be worked out from the % C and the bulk density but then only tells you how much in the top 30 cm. There is a heck of a lot of C down there deeper than that. Trouble then is you want to do annual tests to monitor increases but wandering around a field in a W pattern collecting samples is never going to accurately represent an average for the field each year. How many samples would it need to to get a proper representation of even one hectare, 50, 500, 1000?

Interesting that all fields are near as dammit C:N 10, which is what what we always work on.

The total figure in tons per ha is there- far right column Simon. I believe you can choose the depth you sample to, so could get it in top 15, top 30 or top 45. Of if you think you have stratification, you could sample top15 and 15-30cm separately.

 

[Cutlerstom]

The total figure in tons per ha is there- far right column Simon. I believe you can choose the depth you sample to, so could get it in top 15, top 30 or top 45. Of if you think you have stratification, you could sample top15 and 15-30cm separately.

Its a good point about the sampling though. Always an issue with any soil sampling. I have had a bit of terra mapping done which has an OM layer (Dumas) so could use that for sampling different areas to make it more accurate, but really you just need to pick a location, and sample the same location if you want to try and record a change?

 

[Simon C]

The total figure in tons per ha is there- far right column Simon. I believe you can choose the depth you sample to, so could get it in top 15, top 30 or top 45. Of if you think you have stratification, you could sample top15 and 15-30cm separately.

Sorry, yes I see it now. I do layered tests, mostly now 0 - 15 6%, 15 - 30 5.5%, 30 - 45 4.5%. But there is even more further down.

Haven't read this yet

Error - Cookies Turned Off

acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Don't know about sampling repeatability, OM could vary every few inches across a field.