Research into low-emissions dairy production and carbon sequestration is among the projects awarded funding by Minister of State with special responsibility for Research and Development, Martin Heydon today (Tuesday, July 9).
Minister Heydon today announced €22.3 million in grant aid for 21 new research projects arising from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s (DAFM) 2023 Thematic Research Call.
While research tends to be “slow”, Minister Heydon said that the DAFM invested “heavily” in research into multi-species swards about eight to ten years ago.
“We are now seeing not only the results of that research but the widespread adoption of farmers with that, largely driven by the increased cost of fertiliser in recent years.
“We now see that there is no farmer doing reseeding that isn’t incorporating multi-species swards and clover. That came out of direct investment in research.
“So there is a lot of everyday activity that farmers and our food companies are using now that are the result of research that was invested in in earlier years,” Minister Heydon said.
The 2023 thematic research call sought proposals that would contribute to major challenges such as climate mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity, water quality and sustainable farming.
Dairy research
Among the successful projects is “Zero Zero” led by Teagasc research officer James Humphreys, which focuses on low-emissions dairy production without fertiliser nitrogen or herbicides.
The project follows on from previous research which has shown that intensive dairy systems can be managed without fertiliser nitrogen if grass-clover swards are managed, project collaborator, David Styles said.
Speaking to Agriland, Styles, who is an associate professor at the University of Galway, said systems which incorporate grass-clover swards can produce milk with a carbon and ammonia footprint about 25% lower than conventional systems.
However, one of the challenges is how those systems can be managed without herbicides which are often applied to re-establish the grass-clover sward periodically through re-sowing, he said.
The project will look at how grass clover can be re-established without using herbicides such as glyphosate. He added that they will also look at how these systems can be managed for intensive grazing and silage production.
Carbon sequestration
Another successful funding applicant is Teagasc research officer Rachael Murphy who co-ordinates the Carbon sequestration from agricultural soils from different land-uses, managements and soil types (CALMS) project.
The project will utilise National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory (NASCO) infrastructure, which measures the rate of carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems.
“Eddy Covariance” Flux Towers measure soil carbon uptake and release on a variety of different soil types, ranging from mineral soils to organic soils, across different types of farming systems and grassland, croplands and peatlands.
One of the short-term goals of the NASCO, and what CALMS is hoping to contribute to, is to have refined emissions factors for soil organic carbon, land use and management by 2027, the project co-ordinator told Agriland.
“What we want to do with CALMS is to focus on each of these different elements – soils, land-use and management – to see what are the interactions between these and how do each affect our greenhouse gas dynamics at the field scale,” Murphy said.