Understanding processes determining soil carbon balances under perennial bioenergy crops: CARBO-BIOCROP

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The CARBO-BIOCROP project is part of the NERC initiative on the effects of Land-based Renewable Energies on the environment. The overall objective is to quantify the effects of establishment and cultivation of perennial energy crops on soil carbon storage and emission. The primary aim of this project is to provide and integrate new evidence for the changes of soil carbon stocks and pools resulting from the conversion of arable land and temporary grassland to perennial bioenergy crops (SRC-willow, Miscanthus). This will improve our understanding and modelling of the underlying processes at the managed plant-soil interface. New data will be generated from dedicated experiments (whole systems at field, plot scale) and a country-wide set of soil carbon data under commercial energy crops across the major soil types (spatio-chrono-sequences). The specific objectives of Rothamsted Research are (a) to collate a comprehensive data base using all existing and emerging information (reviews, experiments), (b) to derive parameters for scale-independent process models and (c) to support the system analysis by using specific process-based models. It is specifically Rothamsted's contribution to synthesize these new and existing results for the calibration and evaluation of process-based models. A joint contribution of staff at Rothamsted and North Wyke will be to parameterise and evaluate specific model components (Roth-C, DNDC, bioenergy crop models) and integrate plant and soil processes in aid of up-scaling these processes into a UK scale model (JULES).

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