Carbon Husbandry

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Forestry in general and carbon husbandry especially, are quite different in the  tropical highland country Ethiopia and in the boreal lowland country Finland. When Finland is basically covered everywhere with closed forests, Ethiopia has a mosaic type scenery where closed forests are rare. The densely populated highlands are now basically open agricultural and grazing areas. Modern agroforesty is changing the situation as smallholder farmers are planting trees along the borders of their parcels, and small woodlots for fuelwood and for traditional small house building. The Picture 1 describes the Ethiopian highland setup. There is an indigenous, original forest in the centre. It has been culturally conserved around a local coptic church (in a Sekela village, in Amhara region). The church area is surrounded by smallholder farmers crop fields with more or less scattered trees planted by the farmers themselves. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would define the block in the centre of

The important, key fluxes in Finnish Carbon husbandry are the two: (1) positive Carbon sink flux to Finnish forests and (2) negative Carbon emissions (source) flux from Finnish arable lands. The most accurate data in Finland have been measured for (1) in Finnish forests. In the year 2020 there is the calculated average Carbon sink flux to Finnish forests of magnitude +393 kg C/ha/a.  Picture 1. Coppicing Downy birch - promising tree species for boreal Carbon husbandry in peatlands The most accurate data for Finnish arable lands (2) has been measured for mineral soils. In the year 2020 there is the calculated average Carbon emissions flux from Finnish arable lands of magnitude -430 kg C/ha/a. (Figure 1). Figure 1. Reference Carbon fluxes. Sink fluxes positive, source (emissions) fluxes negative. There is still less comprehensive measurement series for Carbon emissions from arable lands on peat soils. However, it is assumed that the emissions from a peat arable hectare are about 10 tim

Forest carbon number for a special year tells how many tons of elementary Carbon per forest hectare, there are stored in the trees - in solid stems, branches, foliage and roots. Forest carbon number can be calculated at besides national level, also at farm forest level, at regional forests level, as well as at global forests level. In the following example the calculation have been done for Japan at national level. Forest carbon number is calculated by dividing the total carbon stock (c, tn C) at certain time point (t, years) with the forest land area (fl, hectares) of the selected area. fc(t) = c(t) / fl(t) Carbon stock (c, million tons elementary Carbon)) equation for Japanese forests is c(t) = 0. 23646* t^2 - 917,09 * t + 889688 Forest land (fl) equation is fl(t) = -0.0071347* t + 39.324 The development of forest carbon number (fc) for Japanese forests is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Development of Forest carbon number (fc) in Japan since 1961. The average Forest carbon number for J

Carbon husbandry is looking for new methods how to increase the Carbon stock especially in the most fertile mull soils of arable lands. Continuous monoculture, for instance by cereals after cereals with regular plowing, reduces the humus content and correspondingly the elementary Carbon content. An intermediate Carbon husbandry solution is to grow cereals after cereals with direct sowing, without plowing. Also perennial crops (like Picture 1) and agroforestry methods have become more topical. Carbon in agricultural fields, in arable lands has been measured by the Natural Resource Institute Finland (Luke) in a comparative manner, in several hundreds sample plots, by repeating the sampling four times since 1987 (ref 1). The basic measurement has been done for the content of elementary Carbon in dry soil (g C/kg). The measurements have been done in three soil classes: mineral soil, mull soil and peat soil. The classification is based on the share of dry weight organic (humus) soil in the

Picture 1. The forests in Kainuu region are typically coniferous forests, under practical silviculture Kainuu region is geographically a central or central-eastern region in Finland. It is forested, scarcely populated region. Forestry is an important source of livelihood in the region. The amount of solid cubic meters in 2011 in Kainuu forests was 163 million cubic meters and 172 million cubic meters in 2016. Correspondingly, the area of forest hectares was 1.930 million hectares and 1.928 million hectares in 2011 and 2016, respectively (NFI 11 and NFI 12 inventories). With average Carbon Multiplier CM = 0.35314 tn C/m3 the total Carbon stock (stems, branches, foliage, roots) in Kainuu was 57.6 million tons in 2011 and 60.7 million tons in 2016. Forest carbon number is calculated by dividing the total carbon stock (c, tn C) at certain time point (t, years) with the forest land area (fl, hectares) at certain time point, for the selected area. (1)     fc(t) = c(t) / fl(t) Carbon stock c(