Important piece of kit being installed on the farm of Dairygold milk supplier Sean and Paddy Barry, Pallasgreen. Another step on the way for Dairygold’s decarbonisation journey at farm level.
While it is internationally recognised that soils can store carbon, currently in Ireland there is some uncertainly as regards the exact level of carbon emissions and removals from different soil types. Teagasc has established an on-farm research experiment (the National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory) to quantify the amount of carbon sequestered by different soils under a range of management systems.
A key component of this experiment is a network of 30 CO2 flux monitoring towers across the country; these towers will measure field scale CO2 uptake and release 10 times per second all year round.
Soil carbon is also being measured on all the Signpost Farms. The data gathered will be used to verify carbon models which can be used in both our national GHG inventory and, in time, farm calculators/ decision support tools.
