NEW PAPER: Impact of fertiliser, water table, and warming on celery yield and CO2 and CH4 emissions from fenland agricultural peat

Grantham Scholar Magdalena Matysek is the first author of a paper published in a scientific journal. The paper looks at fen peat.

Her paper attempts to find a water table level that would balance peat preservation and crop yield. Its focus is agricultural fen peat. This is to examine possible trade-offs between celery growth and emissions of greenhouse gases at different temperatures, water table levels, and fertiliser use.

Magdalena’s work at the Grantham Centre looks at Arctic soil. Her project measures emissions of two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Then she will find the factors that influence levels. These could be temperature of peat soil, water content, acidity and the depth of the permafrost.

Paper highlights

• Cultivation of peat soil requires drainage as most crops are intolerant of root-zone anoxia.
• This study attempts to find a water table level that would balance peat preservation and crop yield.
• We used two water table levels and two temperatures to examine the effects on celery yield and GHG emissions.
• Raising the water table from −50 cm to −30 cm lowered CO2 emissions, but depressed celery yield.
• CH4 emissions were very low and for the most part not different from zero across all treatments.

You can read the full paper here