Carbo-BioCrop

The Carbo-BioCrop project moves into full swing with the completion of perhaps the largest pulse-chase experiment ever undertaken to track the path of carbon in the bioenergy crops, Miscanthus and Willow SRC. This experiment was delivered in partnership with the Energy Technologies Institute funded ‘Ecosystem Land Use Modelling’ project (ELUM).Watch, listen and read about Dr Niall McNamara and co-workers, discussing experiments carried out at the Lincolnshire energy crop farm used in Carbo-BioCrop as reported by the BBC. Find the article here.

A joint meeting of the complementary research between the Carbo-BioCrop consortium and the UKERC Spatial Mapping consortium was held as a user feed-back session.  Please find the slides presented at this session available from the download tab.

The symposium is for students of the Carbo-Biocrop collaboration, and early career scientists researching bioenergy cropping systems. We would like to create an Early Researchers Biomass Crop Network, to share knowledge and develop links between the different institutions.

The Biomass and Energy Crops IV was jointly organised by the Crops and Environment Committee of the UK’s Association of Applied Biologists in association with the University of Illinois. The Energy Biosciences Institute (the EBI) gave a tour of the EBI energy farm (320 acres) based at the University of Illinois.

The ‘Ecosystem Land Use Modelling & Soil Carbon GHG Flux Trial’ (ELUM) project involves teams of scientists from seven UK universities have come together to launch a multi-million pound ETI funded project. The project aims to understand and quantify the GHG balance of changing land use from arable or grassland to bioenergy production.

Researchers in Carbo-BioCrop are members of consortia modelling biomass yield potential in the UK under scenarios of climate change out to the year 2050.

Soil sampling and biochar application is currently underway at the chronosequence sites using a tested and agreed procedure.

Dr Rebecca Rowe and Dr Matthew Tallis attended the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network (ES KTN) workshop on Sustainable soils January 2011, London UK.

 

A selection of images from the irst Carbo-BioCrop stakeholder meeting, University of Southampton 1st December 2010.

The first annual meeting of the Carbo-BioCrop project took place on 30^th November at University of Southampton and was followed by The First Stakeholder Meeting on 1 December. 

Site selection for UK wide measurements of soil carbon changes under bioenergy crops and the effects of biochar addition is being finalised.

The Carbo-BioCrop project has been reported in the November edition of British Bioenergy News a monthly publication produced by Supergen

Professor Gail Taylor and Dr Matthew Tallis presented aspects of their research at the Fifth International Poplar symposium (http://ocs.entecra.it/index.php/IPS/5). The broad subject of the symposium was "Poplar and willows: from research models to multipurpose trees for a bio-based society".

 

Professor Gail Taylor and Dr Goetz Richter present their work on constraints for bioenergy supply in the UK landscape.



We aim to understand more about soil carbon sequestration by bioenergy crops in the UK and identify what this may provide towards CO₂ emission reductions.