Award details

The North Wyke Farm Platform- National Capability

Reference	BBS/E/C/000J0100
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Paul Harris
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Myriam Jordana Rivero Viera
Institution	Rothamsted Research
Department	Rothamsted Research Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	2,969,077
Status	Current
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2017
End date	31/03/2023
Duration	59 months

Abstract

The North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) was established in 2010 as a National Capability for collaborative research, training and knowledge exchange in agri-environmental sciences. It is a globvally unique, system-based facility that develops solutions for future resilient grazing-livestock systems and associated food chains In April 2011, a system based on permanent pasture was implemented on three 21-ha farmlets to obtain baseline data on hydrology, nutrient cycling and productivity. From July 2013, two farmlets were progressively modified by either: (i) planned reseeding with innovative grasses or (ii) sowing grass and white clover mixtures to reduce nitrogen fertilizer inputs. This modification ended in July 2015 - thus the post-baseline period started. Data generated by the platform is freely available via a Data Portal. As of June 2017, 72 additional experiments and projects have been conducted on the platform. High impact projects include the industry and AHDB backed SUREROOT project. From April 2017, core measurements continue, but there is an increased focus on atmospheric emissions. All core platform data collections from 2017 will coherently dovetail with collections required for the S2N and ASSIST strategic programmes (ISPG) and any external strategic programmes that use the platform. The main ISPG driven collections are: (i) Farm data - enhance forage quality data and collections for sustainability metrics; (ii) Soils data - enhance soil surveys to supplement GHG data at a finer spatial resolution and soil physics for model inputs; (iii) Water data - increase spot sampling and lab. analyses, and add biological indicators; and (iv) Gases data - introduce Eddy Covariance, Boreal laser and GreenFeed greenhouse gas measurements. Data analytics will also evolve with enhanced data quality control.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Crop Science, Plant Science, Soil Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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