Soil based carbon sequestration is of interest as a means of locking carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere in to soil to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Measuring net CO2 absorption and release in soils, particularly in relation to crops the soils support is important for improving understanding of CO2 exchange processes and developing theoretical models that can be used to predict the effects of carbon storage in soils on global warming.
In this project, CultinovaEDGE™ hardware was used to realise a custom in-field monitoring system that undertook precision CO2 measurements in soils supporting a potato crop over two summer growing seasons.
Hourly CO2 measurements were supplemented by soil moisture, electrical conductivity, temperature and pH measurements. Surface air temperature, relative humidity and Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) were also measured, with all measurements being transmitted in real-time via a mobile Internet connection to a cloud-based data storage platform.
The resulting dataset was used by researchers at Newcastle University to advance their understanding of the interactions between carbon dioxide, soil, crops and tillage towards the goal of reducing the negative effects of farming processes on CO2 release to the atmosphere.
