On Rice and Wheat rotations, nutrient management, and Lake Taihu in Jiangsu Province….

Untitled, a photo by Soil & Water Science on Flickr.

We have just spent the last 2 days in the vicinity of Suzhoe and Wuxi in the Lake Taihu catchment in Jaingsu Province. We were visiting as part of the Defra SAIN (Strategic Agriculture Innovation Network) collaboration between the UK and China Governments. Our aim was to visit local rice-wheat rotations with a view to learning about how the agricultural systems ‘worked’ and in particular focusing on the nutrient management. On Friday 11th October 2013 we visited Xingeng Village, to the Northeast of Wangting Town. On the following day we visited a Demonstration site west of Wuxi, the Sandongqiao Village Demonstration Site. On the 11th, firstly were shown some mature rice that was due for harvest later in the autumn. Of course rice production involves flooding the field and that happens earlier in the year. I understand there is a top dressing of fertilizer input at time of sowing, and that this is applied when the padi is flooded. This is intriguing as there is potentially considerable potential for direct nutrient transfers to water at times of flooding. There is also potential for groundwater transfers through potentially cracking clay soil. Additionally, as there is the potential in this extreme wetting and drying to drive nutrient cycling and accelerate nutrient mobilization from soil in these circumstances – it would be interesting to investigate this hypothesis. I would be interested to see how much nutrient was lost in detached soil or sediment around times of sowing when the crop is immature. We asked questions of the team about the nutrient management and as far as we could understand they seemed to have a very agronomic centric view, inasmuch as they spoke of monitoring the system wholly in terms of fertilizer and recycled manure inputs. When questioned about transfers to water they did not seem to have a sense of the potential kg/ha losses, nor any sense of the hydrologic dynamics. There was not any evidence of measuring water flow so therefore I cannot see how they have any sense of nutrient flows to water. On the Saturday at Sandongqiao we met the impressive Prof Yudong Li (Shanghai Jiantong University) who appeared to have a much greater sense of the importance of flows to water. However, the Sandongqiao site is only in its infancy and although the rotation has the potential to offer some useful data in the future.

In summary:
•There are no data on flows to water and there seems to be a lack of emphasis on this
•The systems appear to be constrained and driven by agronomic production with only an emerging regard for losses to the environment
•It reminds me of my own work in the UK in the early 1990s, with systems driven by soil P tests and fertilizer levels, occasional concentration in water. The next step is that they need to learn to determine the nature of the losses to the water, including the hydrological flows and dynamics, not just the concentrations in water.
•A great ‘problem’ for these systems is the density of the population; therefore one cannot manage the water quality without a sense of the agriculture combined with the human inputs. There are governance and communication challenges here
•The work at Sandongqiao is promising and I see analogies with other studies in the past.

My photos from this trip can be viewed here.

Phil

Caption competition!

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Originally uploaded by Soil & Water Science

We have been having a bit of fun trying to think up cations for this photo of John and Ed.

e.g 1:

I think we were deciding to move Haygarth to play wide on the left, with Allton as the lone striker.

e,g. 2:

Ed (thought bubble) ‘I wish he’d stop going on about soil erosion’

Any suggestions welcome.....

Soil Scientists footloose in the north Pennines!

Recently working with my colleagues in the British Society of Soil Science, we hosted the annual conference based at Lancaster but had a field trip in the Eden Valley and on Hartside.  The weather was terrific.  Thanks to all the team for a great effort - here are the photos that I took on the day 

Checking out the Venue for the World Congress of Soil Science 2022

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Originally uploaded by Soil & Water Science

Yesterday I had an inspiring visit to Glasgow (and a first 'out' for me for a while post my accident) along with the team of colleagues from the British Society of Soil Science to explore the City of Glasgow as a venue for the 2022 Congress. We are bidding as a Society to host this bid and were impressed by the team from http://www.secc.co.uk/. If you click on the picture you will see some more shots of the proposed venue and the beautiful riverside.

Glasgow calling.....

Farmers, Defra and the Agency learning together

Untitled, a photo by Soil & Water Science on Flickr.

I have just been part of a most inspiring gathering.......With my partners from EdenDTC, Eden Rivers Trust and Newton Rigg College, we brought together national Defra staff with farmers in the Eden to talk about solutions for future farming and water quality. After visiting a number of farms, we came together for drinks and dinner in the Mil Yard Cafe, Morland. The spirit of the day was terrific and I think provides some useful inspiration for making a difference. It was particularly exciting to see the farmers - the local land experts - gaining confidence from the dialogue so that they might be empowered to lead the way on new innovations and solutions. Farmer power!

Recruiting two soil and water phosphorus scientists

I am looking to recruit two post doctoral researchers to be based at Lancaster University in the UK. Two successful applicants will join a NERC funded project to study phosphorus and the changing water cycle and be part of a team that includes Lancaster, Liverpool, Bangor, UEA and Anglia Ruskin Universities as well as the Met Office Hadley Centre (Exeter), ADAS and the James Hutton Institute in Scotland. Both positions are fixed for 3 years and the details are: 

Soil/Water Catchment Biogeochemist 

Soil/Water Catchment Modeller

The closing date for both applications is 24th May (not long!) and interviews will be held on the 13th June. Please contact me if you wish to know more details or apply through the web site.