Optimising Subsidiary Crop Applications in Rotations (OSCAR)-farm Testing of Cover Crop Species Mixes

One challenge farmers face in planning cover crop systems is the dependence of cover crops on biophysical conditions such as soil type, rainfall, and climate. The performance of different cover crop species therefore varies according to geographic location and on-farm growing conditions. Farmers need a quick and effective way of identifying suitable species for their farm. Although farmer led assessment methods may not produce robust, quantifiable data, they do encourage farmers to actively engage in selecting species mixes adapted to on-farm conditions and to assess species performance with an increased level of detail and scrutiny than might otherwise be used

Schattentolerante Grasgemenge für Agroforstsysteme in der Legehennen-Haltung

This field-study focuses on provision of ground vegetation in a silvopoultry system.Silvopoultry is an agroforestry system in which trees are integrated in the chicken run in order to support natural behavior of laying hens. The trial was conducted on an organic farm in Southern England by the Organic Research Centre and aimed to assess the performance of different sward mixtures under trees. The sward mixtures tested included (1) a commercially available “standard” sward, (2) a sward with especially shade tolerant grasses and (3) a diverse sward including legumes and forage herbs. It was found that all mixtures established well under trees and didn’t show significant differences in productivity after six weeks. The “standard” sward mixture showed slightly higher biomass production. Sowing any of the sward mixtures appeared to reduce weed abundance compared to the control

Wakelyns Agroforestry: Resilience through diversity

Integrating trees for timber, energy and fruit production into an organic crop rotation, Wakelyns (a 22.5-hectare innovative farm) was established by the late plant pathologist Professor Martin Wolfe to put into action his theories of agrobiodiversity being the answer to achieving sustainable and resilient agriculture. The farm has been the focus of research into organic crop production and agroforestry for over 20 years and continues to be a source of inspiration for those practicing or studying agroforestry. Some of the key theories investigated at Wakelyns and the evidence produced by Martin and researchers from the Organic Research Centre are summarised in this publication, which is invaluable to any farmer or land manager with an interest in carrying out agroforestry on their land

Meeting tree planting targets on the UK’s path to net-zero: A review of lessons learnt from 100 years of land use policies

The UK government has pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Ambitious targets have been set to plant nearly a million hectares of new woodland in the UK by 2050 to meet these net-zero commitments. More than 70% of UK’s land is used for agricultural production and to meet these targets the Climate Change Committee has estimated that by 2050 approximately 21% of agricultural land will be required for tree planting, agroforestry and the extension of farm hedges. Achieving this creates a potential conflict between land for food production and land for carbon sequestration. However, trees and woodlands, when integrated into farming systems, can be multifunctional and play a significant role in helping farmers adapt and become more resilient in the face of climate change. Over the last 100 years numerous government policies and incentive schemes have endeavoured to encourage more tree planting activities amongst farmers and landowners with varying degrees of success. This paper reviews the role of policy in determining the presence of trees in the UK’s agricultural landscape over the past 100 years. We quantify the current extent of woodland and tree cover and aim to put the UK’s net-zero tree planting targets in the context of historical agricultural land use patterns. We evaluate drivers behind the current extent of trees, woodland and agroforestry on UK farms and identify key elements of success in current and previous policies and incentive schemes to help inform future policy mechanisms for the UK to meet its tree planting targets. Farmers are increasingly under pressure to deliver a wide range of environmental goals as well as producing food. The effectiveness of financial incentives to influence tree planting is dependent on the pre-existing interest and values of the farmer or landowner and grants alone may not be sufficient to encourage farmers to plant trees. Scheme complexity, bureaucracy and insufficient payment rates are barriers to the success of woodland grants and agri-environment schemes. Simplicity is important to encourage uptake, however oversimplification of schemes can lead to unintended consequences. Advice and guidance are key elements in the successful adoption of any new land management methods. A key to future progress will be scheme flexibility to enable farmers to choose to plant trees where it best suits local conditions, to align policy tools with farmer values and to ensure that farmers and landowners have the knowledge and support to make these decisions

Meeting tree planting targets on the UK's path to net-zero: A review of lessons learnt from 100 years of land use policies

The UK government has pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Ambitious targets have been set to plant nearly a million hectares of new woodland in the UK by 2050 to meet these net-zero commitments. More than 70% of UK’s land is used for agricultural production and to meet these targets the Climate Change Committee has estimated that by 2050 approximately 21% of agricultural land will be required for tree planting, agroforestry and the extension of farm hedges. Achieving this creates a potential conflict between land for food production and land for carbon sequestration. However, trees and woodlands, when integrated into farming systems, can be multifunctional and play a significant role in helping farmers adapt and become more resilient in the face of climate change. Over the last 100 years numerous government policies and incentive schemes have endeavoured to encourage more tree planting activities amongst farmers and landowners with varying degrees of success. This paper reviews the role of policy in determining the presence of trees in the UK’s agricultural landscape over the past 100 years. We quantify the current extent of woodland and tree cover and aim to put the UK’s net-zero tree planting targets in the context of historical agricultural land use patterns. We evaluate drivers behind the current extent of trees, woodland and agroforestry on UK farms and identify key elements of success in current and previous policies and incentive schemes to help inform future policy mechanisms for the UK to meet its tree planting targets. Farmers are increasingly under pressure to deliver a wide range of environmental goals as well as producing food. The effectiveness of financial incentives to influence tree planting is dependent on the pre-existing interest and values of the farmer or landowner and grants alone may not be sufficient to encourage farmers to plant trees. Scheme complexity, bureaucracy and insufficient payment rates are barriers to the success of woodland grants and agri-environment schemes. Simplicity is important to encourage uptake, however oversimplification of schemes can lead to unintended consequences. Advice and guidance are key elements in the successful adoption of any new land management methods. A key to future progress will be scheme flexibility to enable farmers to choose to plant trees where it best suits local conditions, to align policy tools with farmer values and to ensure that farmers and landowners have the knowledge and support to make these decisions

Productivity and Economic Evaluation of Agroforestry Systems for Sustainable Production of Food and Non-Food Products

Agroforestry systems have multifunctional roles in enhancing agronomic productivity, co-production of diversity of food and non-food products and provision of ecosystem services. The knowledge of the performance of agroforestry systems compared with monoculture is scarce and scattered. Hence, the objective of the study was to analyze the agronomic productivity and economic viability of diverse agroforestry systems in Europe. A network of five agroforestry systems integrating arable crops, livestock and biomass trees was investigated to assess the range of agricultural products in each agroforestry system. Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) was used to measure the agronomic productivity, whereas gross margin was used as an indicator for economic viability assessment. LER values ranged from 1.36–2.00, indicating that agroforestry systems were more productive by 36–100% compared to monocultures. Agroforestry gross margin was lower in Denmark (€112 ha−1 year−1) compared to United Kingdom (€5083 ha−1 year−1) and the crop component yielded higher returns compared to negative returns from the tree component in agroforestry. Hence, the study provided robust field-based evidence on agronomic productivity and economic viability assessment of agroforestry systems in diverse contexts for informed decision making by land managers, advisory services, farmers and policymakers

Ancient nuclear genomes enable repatriation of Indigenous human remains.

After European colonization, the ancestral remains of Indigenous people were often collected for scientific research or display in museum collections. For many decades, Indigenous people, including Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, have fought for their return. However, many of these remains have no recorded provenance, making their repatriation very difficult or impossible. To determine whether DNA-based methods could resolve this important problem, we sequenced 10 nuclear genomes and 27 mitogenomes from ancient pre-European Aboriginal Australians (up to 1540 years before the present) of known provenance and compared them to 100 high-coverage contemporary Aboriginal Australian genomes, also of known provenance. We report substantial ancient population structure showing strong genetic affinities between ancient and contemporary Aboriginal Australian individuals from the same geographic location. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of successfully identifying the origins of unprovenanced ancestral remains using genomic methods

Task 2.2: Report on Life Cycle and Emergy Assessment

This report is a part of WP2 Foodlever project task “Holistic sustainability assessment”. Environmental assessment is conducted following a life cycle perspective, specially using the Life Cycle Assessement (LCA) and Emergy Assessement. A cradle-to-grave LCA determines the overall sustainability of the innovative organic farms compared to mainstream organic systems, separated into three phases: farm, farm to consumer and consumer

Creeping Thistle

The technical guide explains the challenges that arable farmers face in control of creeping thistle, a persistent perennial weed. The guide provides detailed recommendations, how to prevent thistles from establishing in crops, how to limit spreading after first plants have established, and how to proceed in case of extensive spread of thistles using mechanical control measures and intensive greening

Making hedgerows pay their way: the economics of harvesting field boundary hedges for bioenergy

Existing landscape features, such as field boundary hedgerows, can contribute to food, fodder, material, and energy production for an EU bio-based circular economy. Recent trials undertaken by the project team in the UK demonstrated that hedgerows can be managed to produce woodfuel of a quality that meets industry standards. However, to be attractive to farmers, woodfuel production from hedgerows must be profitable. This paper uses the FarmSAFE model to undertake a financial assessment with data generated from these trials. The net present value of a standard hedgerow management method (flailing every 2 years) was compared with those from alternative hedgerow management scenarios for woodfuel production over a 60 year time horizon. Using data from the hedgerow trials, the results showed that coppicing hedgerows for woodfuel production could provide a profit to the farmer. The sale of woodchips into an off-farm market was found to be profitable if harvesting with tree shears (medium scale harvesting capacity) or a Bracke felling head (large scale harvesting capacity), but chainsaw harvesting (small scale harvesting capacity) was unprofitable. When considering the use of woodchips on farm to replace purchased woodchip or heating oil, the financial benefit to the farmer increased. Sensitivity analyses showed that the use of medium scale machinery (tree shears) made the hedgerow enterprise most resilient to changes in prices, grants, and costs. This scale of machinery is appropriate for local energy production whilst also being affordable to farmers and local contractors