Field trial will see thousands of trees planted

MORE than 25,000 new trees will be planted on 28 acres of land in north Carmarthenshire as part of a field trial combining two nature-based climate solutions never previously deployed together on such a large scale.

Over the first two years, the project – which is on land near the village of Cynghordy, north of Llandovery – will measure the carbon stored in the trees and soil, and the results will identify the combination of treatments where the most carbon has been sequestered.

The Carbon Community aims to scale up this reforestation method to accelerate and enhance carbon removal from the atmosphere.

The Carbon Community is a new charity dedicated to creating forests and speeding up carbon removal with breakthrough science.

It creates new forest on its own land to ensure the trees that are planted will be there for generations.

The charity is looking for funders and partners to scale up tree planting and help advance the research on carbon in trees and soil.

Charles Nicholls, co-founder of the Carbon Community, said: “Reforestation is one of the most powerful tools we have to combat climate breakdown, much of which will happen on agricultural land.

“Intensively farmed land is often stripped of the native biodiversity and minerals needed for optimal tree establishment.

“With this unique project we aim to restore biodiversity, enhance tree survival and unlock huge potential to accelerate and enhance the carbon stored in trees and soil.”

The Carbon Community field trial is the first of its kind and the results will be made freely available to other tree-planting projects and environmental scientists.

The trial will study two types of forests: the first comprises native broadleaf species from Wales, including birch, alder, cherry, oak, aspen and rowan.

The second type is a monoculture conifer forest comprising sitka spruce, typical of commercial forestry plantations.

In the design of this experiment ETH Zurich’s Crowther Lab is intentionally reintroducing soil from established forest ecosystems in an effort to jump start reforestation.

For this field trial, The Carbon Community sourced soils from nearby forests.

Dr Colin Averill, senior scientist at the Crowther Lab, said: “This is an important world-first field trial which will measure carbon sequestered in trees and soil on a scope and scale not seen before.

“Studies continue to find that introduction of native soil communities can dramatically increase plant survival.

“How these fungi may in turn affect tree seedling growth and survival rates and ecosystem carbon sequestration at scale remains unknown, and is one example of how The Carbon Community is pushing the frontiers of naturebased climate solutions.”

The second aspect of the project is enhanced rock weathering.

This is a natural geological process which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The project will add basalt to the soil which has the potential to dramatically increase the carbon removal and accelerate the establishment of new forests.

Professor David Beerling at the University of Sheffield, one of the project leaders, said: “Our recent research revealed that applying basalt to croplands could absorb up to two billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.

“This exciting new partnership with The Carbon Community enables us to understand basalt addition in a reforestation project.

“To avoid catastrophic climate change we need to urgently scale up carbon removal strategies, alongside deep emissions cuts.”