Carbon Husbandry

Carbon in agricultural fields belongs to the most topical research sectors for climate change in 2020s. Carbon husbandry is searching for new methods how to increase the Carbon stock in the soil. Also perennial crops and agroforestry methods have become more topical, like possibility of willow husbandry in new era farms (Picture 1).  Picture 1. Annual and perennial crop blocks in the agriculture 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 four times, since 1987 (ref 1). The basic measurements have been done for the content of elementary Carbon in dry soil (g C/kg). The measurements cover 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 total soil dry weight. In mineral soil the organic share is less than 20 per cent. In mull soil the share is between ...

Forest carbon number for a special year tells how many tons of elementary Carbon there is per forest hectare. The Carbon is stored in the trees, including the solid stems, the branches, the foliage and the roots. Forest carbon number can be calculated at various categories level like at farm forest level, at regional forests level, at national forests level and at global forests level. Forest carbon number (fc) is calculated by dividing the total carbon stock (c, tn C) at certain time point (t, years) by the forest land area (fl, hectares) over the selected category. (1)      fc(t) = c(t) / fl(t) At Finnish national level the Carbon stock (c) equation is (2)     c(t) = 0.06460  * t^2 - 250.40 * t + 243136 Consequently, the forest land (fl) equation is (3)     fl(t) = -0.006073 * t + 38.46 The development of forest carbon number (fc, equation 1) for Finnish forests is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Development of Forest car...