Emerging year 1 Environment Baselining Pilot results

All the year 1 data for the Environment Baselining Pilot farms across Great Britain has now been collected.     

This includes over 53,000 soil cores taken down to 1m where conditions allowed, across approximately 5,000 farmland, moorland and woodland fields.  

The land was also LiDAR scanned to estimate above- and below-ground carbon stocks in woody biomass, which together with the soil results assess the total carbon stocks on farm.   

Carbon footprint measurements show greenhouse gas emissions information and an estimate of carbon sequestration.    

• Large range in carbon stocks across farmland fields ranging from 37 to 865 t/ha 

• In general carbon stocks were similar in farmland and woodland fields but were higher in moorland fields  

• Average soil organic carbon stocks (SOC) on farmland across all soil types was 128 t/ha, but these figures are skewed by very high SOC levels in organic soils   

• The distribution of SOC stocks down the soil profile was similar in different land types and showed a consistent trend for 30% or more of the carbon to be stored below 30cm

All this data helps farmers when making decisions on their own farms, while an action plan has been drawn up to focus on areas to improve the farm's environmental impact.  

Work is now focusing on processing the datasets and bringing them together for analysis and reporting. 

What is clear is the vast range of soil organic carbon stocks seen across farmland in GB. The highest stocks found during the project were in deep peat soils in the Cambridgeshire Fens and Somerset Levels.  

Figure 1. Distribution of soil organic carbon stocks (t/ha) across farmland fields (excluding moorland)