Will we be ploughing for re seeding in the future?

[DRC]

we will see a carbon tax in the future i’m
sure

its the only way businesses and consumers will be incentivised to clean up fast OR pay for others to clean up for them

Farmers should be super excited by this new and lucrative opportunity - finally a product we can sell where denand massively out-strips supply !

You mean landowners should be excited , not necessarily farmers , as I can’t see any landlord allowing tenants, even on AHA tenancies, to do this if it’s for many years .

 

[DaveGrohl]

i think synthetic fert will just end up being banned ultimately - i doubt we will need it 10 yrs from now anyway

Please assume I'm a stoopid person and expand please. I suspect what you're getting at but just want to check.

 

[turbo]

i think synthetic fert will just end up being banned ultimately - i doubt we will need it 10 yrs from now anyway

Synthetic fert will be still with us just made a different way,more carbon neutral or made from a by product.how much carbon has your soil released due to cracking this spring?

 

[oil barron]

as soon as tillage stops you are oxidising less carbon and you are using less fuel so benefit is from year 1

bigger question imo is how do you ensure that after say 10 yrs of selling C You don’t then plough it up ? same for planting a tree ........ great until you cut it down and burn the logs !

How does the carbon oxidization work? What’s the chemical reaction ?

 

[Clive]

How does the carbon oxidization work? What’s the chemical reaction ?

if my GCSE chemistry serves me correctly - 1 carbon plus 2 oxygen atoms = C02

oxidization is like rusting metal when iron is exposed to an oxygen source ??

I'm a farmer however not a chemist or soil scientist I will point out !

 

[oil barron]

if my GCSE chemistry serves me correctly - 1 carbon plus 2 oxygen atoms = C02

oxidization is like rusting metal

My pencil isn’t rusting

 

[Clive]

Synthetic fert will be still with us just made a different way,more carbon neutral or made from a by product.how much carbon has your soil released due to cracking this spring?

My soil doesn't crack, in fact my soil is not always easy to see even, its usually beneath a layer of residue or plants

We won't need synthetic fert, it will be biological I expect a decade or so from now (maybe sooner)

 

[oil barron]

My soil doesn't crack

We won't need synthetic fert, it will be biological I expect a decade or so from now (maybe sooner)

I was only joking when I said you could sell Alchemy to the government earlier in the thread

 

[Clive]

My pencil isn’t rusting

I don't know anything about pencils

 

[oil barron]

I don't know anything about pencils

I don’t want to sound harsh, but I’m not sure you know much about soil. Carbon doesn’t react by just being in contact with oxygen.

 

[Clive]

I don’t want to sound harsh, but I’m not sure you know much about soil. Carbon doesn’t react by just being in contact with oxygen.

I know enough about soil thanks, if you want a detailed chemistry lesson I suggest you ask a chemist and not a farmer?

and I'm selling my carbon sequestration and storage ........ are you ?

 

[oil barron]

I know enough about soil thanks, if you want a detailed chemistry lesson I suggest you ask a chemist and not a farmer?

and I'm selling my carbon sequestration and storage ........ are you ?

Not as an owner, but as an employee, yes the company I work for is selling carbon sequestration. That’s really what triggered my questioning knowing the hoops we have to jump through to prove that the CO2 will stay in the reservoir for eternity and the binding contracts we have to sign.
I’m curious if anyone on the forum would be better able to explain how no till sequesters carbon fully?

 

[Old apprentice]

All this arguing over cultivation system is so utterly boring and pointless.
the whole farming system is what should be spoken about. How do we harness the completely overlooked soil biology. How do we reduce our nitrogen use without losing output. How do we increase OM levels through producing root exudates. How do we produce more glomalin in order to structure soils. How do we encourage the fungal fraction of soils to make years of over applied and locked up nutrients become available.
At the moment, in pretty much all farming systems whether that’s plough or DD we just sling nitrogen at the crop then use chemicals to sort out the symptoms of problems we have created, we never sort the cause. It’s a wet dream for the input suppliers and were so in thrall to the system we think they are our friends. We need to wake up!

I would say there is a he'll of a lot to learn more proper rsearch needed may be in years the secrets of plant and soil interrelations will be unlocked or just a pipe dream?

 

[DrWazzock]

I can see that DD might well increase OM levels in the soil but I am not to convinced that the OM levels increase year on year continually after the first few years of increase.. I suspect they level off at a new equilibrium, just as in woodland. We have a wood where the soil hasn't been disturbed for 200 years. It's a deciduous wood, so has fallen leaves added every year. Yet I would not think that the depth of leaf litter and OM increases every year. I think natural oxidation by biological activity keeps pace with and "eats up vaporises" the added OM.
So yes I agree DD can increase the level of OM in the soil and sequester a certain amount of carbon, (maybe a huge amount globally) but what do you tell your offsetting customers when the level of OM in the soil levels off and doesn't increase further? That's my concern really. I'm not knocking DD itself. It's a good thing in the right circumstances but using it as an offset for others carbon dioxide emissions long term is stretching things, I think. It would be nice to see some figures from scientific trials of OM levels under different management regimes over say a decade.

 

[Clive]

Not as an owner, but as an employee, yes the company I work for is selling carbon sequestration. That’s really what triggered my questioning knowing the hoops we have to jump through to prove that the CO2 will stay in the reservoir for eternity and the binding contracts we have to sign.
I’m curious if anyone on the forum would be better able to explain how no till sequesters carbon fully?

The process is ISO certified so I'm sure it's credible - its not "just" no-till however - its the entire farming system that calculated the carbon capture you have to sell

 

[Clive]

I can see that DD might well increase OM levels in the soil but I am not to convinced that the OM levels increase year on year continually after the first few years of increase.. I suspect they level off at a new equilibrium, just as in woodland. We have a wood where the soil hasn't been disturbed for 200 years. It's a deciduous wood, so has fallen leaves added every year. Yet I would not think that the depth of leaf litter and OM increases every year. I think natural oxidation by biological activity keeps pace with and "eats up vaporises" the added OM.
So yes I agree DD can increase the level of OM in the soil and sequester a certain amount of carbon, (maybe a huge amount globally) but what do you tell your offsetting customers when the level of OM in the soil levels off and doesn't increase further? That's my concern really. I'm not knocking DD itself. It's a good thing in the right circumstances but using it as an offset for others carbon dioxide emissions long term is stretching things, I think. It would be nice to see some figures from scientific trials of OM levels under different management regimes over say a decade.

I believe there is a limit but it would take a long time to reach it, if you build 0.1-0.2% SOM a year you are doing well

 

[Clive]

I would say there is a he'll of a lot to learn more proper rsearch needed may be in years the secrets of plant and soil interrelations will be unlocked or just a pipe dream?

we know a lot more today than we did a decade ago - I expect we will know a lot more still a decade from now

 

[DrWazzock]

Are we allowed to put links up? If so I think this explains it fairly well.

Soil C Sequestration as a Biological Negative Emission Strategy

Soil carbon (C) sequestration is one of three main approaches to carbon dioxide removal and storage through management of terrestrial ecosystems. Soil C sequestration relies of the adoption of improved management practices that increase the amount of carbon stored as soil organic matter...

www.frontiersin.org

So there is great potential, if you are starting from a low base, which will level off after some decades. Good. We can do it, if it fits our system.
Do we really need to be paid to do? Well that's a different argument.
My sandy low OM field is therefore probably a bigger asset than my 200 year old wood which has reached saturated OM level.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

The process is ISO certified so I'm sure it's credible - its not "just" no-till however - its the entire farming system that calculated the carbon capture you have to sell

What worries me is that carbon credits will be bought up by people and corporations so they can carry on their profligate activities, polluting the world into an uncertain future as they go.

I'll be quite happy with some modest government incentives to reduce my carbon footprint , including some disincentives like a carbon tax, if it helps.

 

[DrWazzock]

I admit, if something falls over in the wood now I tend to leave it to rot if I don't need it to heat the house. Suddenly somebody like myself who would once be called a lazy barsteward is now at the cutting edge of carbon sequestration. And it's not a mess, its carbon sequestration in progress. I might get a sign made up to stick on it.