Sharing experiences on catchment change

Originally uploaded by Soil & Water Science

We recently ran a workshop in the River Eden valley, at the Crown Inn in Morland to share catchment, climate and land use change experiences, in living memory. The meeting was introduced by guest speaker Dr Peter Falloon from the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, who set an interesting tone presenting the data and uncertainties in weather and climate patterns in the Eden over recent years. It was enthusiastically attended by farmers from the Lune and Eden Valley, as well as academics and other stakeholders. One observation by one of the more experienced farmers was a note that the big changes he had witnessed over his lifetime were (1) mechanisation and (2) the influence of genetic innovation, particularly for dairy animals. A few snaps from the evening - including a dinner of stew and chips and a couple of pints - are here.

Team 'NUTCAT' visit EdenDTC

Originally uploaded by Soil & Water Science

Recently a number of us from the new NERC 'NUTCAT' funded project had a tour of the EdenDTC, with a particular focus on Morland. The NUTCAT Project is concerned with 'helping to understand and improve water quality in our rivers - present and future' and you can learn more about the project here and view a few of the wet and wintery scenes here.

LEC's RGS Ambassadors

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Originally uploaded by Soil & Water Science

Here is a 'selfie' taken last week with the impressively bearded Simon Faulkner from the Royal Geographical Society, together with Lancaster Environment Centre's stalwart Geography Ambassador, Dan Flanagan. Dan, trained by Simon, has been out and about in the schools around the country spreading the word about Geography. Last week Simon, aided by Dan, trained another enthusiastic bunch of LEC ambassadors and the cycle starts again. Nice job everybody!

Recruiting - Phosphorus PhD project at Lancaster University and Rothamsted

We have an exciting PhD studentship oportunity and we are seeking high quality applicants.

This fully funded PhD studentship is part of the NERC ENVISION Doctoral Training Programme and is an excellent opportunity to work on the development of novel measures for tracing phosphorus

This project will use a novel stable isotope technique to better understand phosphorus (P) cycling within the plant-soil-water system. By advancing fundamental understanding of P biogeochemistry, the project seeks to address challenges related to plant nutrition and agricultural production, alongside the protection of water quality. The supervisory team offers access to knowledge and facilities related to phosphate oxygen isotope research across the UK and Europe.

The key objectives of this studentship will be to:
1) Understand the partitioning of newly-applied P between individual soil P pools;
2) Understand the bioavailability of P within individual soil P pools, and the mechanisms through which P in these pools is accessed by organisms;
3) Understand the mobility of soil and plant P fractions within soil water and the risk of export of P in runoff or leachate from the plant-soil system.

For Full details please see The Envision Site

best wishes

Phil

Congratulations Dr Tegan Darch

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

Congratulations Dr Tegan Darch who today defended her PhD on soil phosphorus. Another PhD student success! Well done Tegan, Happy Days!

Congratulations Dr Roberts!

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

Congratulations to my PhD student Will who successfully defended his thesis on phosphorus bio-geochemistry today! Well done Will!

On wheat-maize rotations and nutrient flows in Huantai County, Shandong Province, 14th-16th October 2013

This visit was separated into four parts. Firstly, we met farmers and growers at a local village that was closely connected to an experimental station. We also met an agricultural entrepreneur who ran a corn and wheat processing company, and then we visit the institute itself and met officials from the Huantai Agricultural Bureau. Finally, when we were in Beijing on 16th we visited the west campus of the China Agriculture University (CAU) and spoke with Professors Wu and Meng, who were the academic leaders of the experiments. We were shown a useful presentation by Wu Lingfen who is an MSc student doing an N balance for Huantai County 1980-2012. Huantai county claims to be the most productive county in China (this seems to be a legitimate claim) and we were shown a film that promoted it in an extremely positive and production centric light, although there were some references to ‘mitigating’ non point source pollution that did not match with our analysis of things when we interviewed people. The rotations seem to plough in the straw stubble and consequently the soil organic matter is seemingly not declining and there are claims for it to have been actually increasing.

A few key learning outcomes for me were:

•The nitrate levels in the groundwater seemed to be approximately 3x the UK standard
•The water flows in this region are almost all to groundwater, so there is a sense of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
•There was little real regard or concern for water quality
•According to the Agricultural Bureau, the water quality monitoring is the ‘job for the provisional government’ and that the information is ‘classified’. The bureau did not seem to be aware of any county level programme for protecting water resources.
•Generally there seems to be a nitrogen centric view here, phosphorus was little mentioned although it is used with N and K (in a bagged fertilizer NPK 15-15-15)

My photos from the trip to Huantai can be viewed here.

Phil