Field experiments
- Thematic Strategy:
- Soils
- Key Staff:
- Dr. Saran P. Sohi, Teri Angst , Maria Borlinghaus, Tom Maxfield, Gary McClean
UKBRC is involved in a variety of field experiments over a range of land uses and farming systems within the UK and the USA.
These experiments look at the effects of biochar treatments (manipulated biochar), application rates, and biochar combined with additions of lime, manures or crop residues, and their impact on soil carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas production, as well as crop yields, resistance to plant disease, and soil processes.
Further details of the specific projects can be found from the project links below.
Relevant Projects:
- A biological perspective: Impacts of biochar on the health of cereal crops
- Ageing patterns for biochar in the field
- Biochar and plant-soil interactions
- Biochar in Forestry
- Biochar: Socio-economic and biophysical “fit”
- C-Sink project (EU Horizon Europe)
- Carbo-BioCrop: Carbon balance under perennial bioenergy crops
- EU COST Action
- Establishing effects of biochar on carbon dynamics in the field
- NEWS India-UK network
- Sustainable urban carbon capture - engineering soils for climate change (SUCCESS)
- Taking commercial apple production to Net Zero
- Use of biochar in management of organic amendments in grassland agriculture
Publications:
Sohi SP, Shackley SJ, Haszeldine RS, Manning D and Mašek O 2009. Biochar, reducing and removing CO2 while improving soils:A significant and sustainable response to climate change. Evidence submitted to the Royal Society Geo-engineering Climate Enquiry, UKBRC Working Paper 2
Shackley SJ and Sohi SP (eds) 2010. An assessment of the benefits and issues associated with the application of biochar to soil. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London, UK.
Jeffery, S., Bezemer, T.M., Cornellisen, G., Kuyper, T.W. Lehmann, J., Mommer, L., Sohi, S.P., Van De Voorde, T.F.J., Wardle, D.A., Van Groenigen, J.W. (2013) The way forward in biochar research: targeting trade-offs between the potential wins. GCB Bioenergy 7:1161–1175
Verheijen, F.G.A., Graber, E.R., Ameloot, N., Bastos, A.C., Sohi, S.P., Knicker, H. (2014) Biochars in soils: new insights and emerging research needs. European Journal of Soil Science 65:22–27
Angst, T.E., Six, J., Reay, D.S., Sohi, S.P. (2014) Impact of pine chip biochar on trace greenhouse gas emissions and soil nutrient dynamics in an annual ryegrass system in California. Agroecosystems and the Environment 191:17-26