Thursday, May 12, 2016

BGS is delighted to be involved in a new collaborative research project, led by Newcastle University and funded by SARIC, the Sustainable Agriculture and Research Innovation Club, an industry/public funding consortium.

The project seeks to develop and initiate the use of an innovative web-based platform to help famers and land managers to make informed decisions on soil management which will produce financial, agronomic and environmental benefit. It will be based on an existing Australian web framework, which will be carefully adapted for lowland grassland and arable systems in the UK. BGS will be involved in holding workshops during development of the tool and in piloting its use once developed.

By 2018, soilquality.org.uk will provide:

• access to robust interpretation of soil quality indicators for the UK

• clear information on the links between these indicators, crop performance, yield and environmental impacts

• information on soil sampling, site characterisation and recommended laboratory analysis

• information on management approaches to address any soil-based constraints to production

• opportunity to compare your own site-specific data with data collected in the region/ soil type

Upcoming Workshop

On June 1, BGS will host one of the Soil Quality introductory meetings at Reaseheath, open to anyone with an interest in managing agricultural soils. The meeting will run from 12.30 to 3pm, with lunch included, and will:

• introduce the project,

• examine the sister framework already in place in Australia (soilquality.org.au) and

• identify how you can get involved in shaping the web-platform

• provide opportunities to pilot the approach on-farm and record soil quality information

   

  If you’d like to attend on June 1 please email: bgsoffice@britishgrassland.com