Moving to net zero barley production

气候紧急情况要求紧急制定创新和有效的缓解措施，以实现向净零排放的公正过渡。人们越来越关注如何在农业部门解决这一问题，同时仍然为不断增长的全球人口保持生产。该项目由学术界和工业界合作伙伴共同开发，将探索减少威士忌行业大麦种植对环境影响的潜力。威士忌是英国最有价值的食品和饮料产品（到2020年将达到55亿英镑），但大麦种植阶段的碳足迹约占每瓶威士忌生产碳足迹的50%。在很大程度上，这是化肥使用的结果（生产的能源成本和施用后土壤的温室气体通量）。因此，迫切需要在保持可持续粮食生产的同时减少化肥使用的战略。通过厌氧消化（AD）将酒厂废物用于能源生产（沼气）已经成为抵消威士忌制造碳成本的一种既定手段。然而，AD本身产生的营养含量高的废物（消化物）对环境有潜在的有害影响（例如，污水排放影响水质）。因此，该项目的具体目的是研究AD废物作为肥料替代品的潜在价值，利用其在大麦种植中的高营养价值，并通过废物流的转移来支持循环经济原则。这项研究将包括控制环境和实地试验，以评估AD废物的肥料等效性，量化与化肥相比，麦芽的生长和谷物质量。AD废弃物对土壤健康的影响必须是中性或积极的，该项目将量化其应用对土壤生物多样性和功能的影响。这将包括采用同位素方法量化土壤中的碳和养分循环过程（包括温室气体通量和养分淋滤），并结合微生物/动物群落的分子特征来确定AD废物应用的相关影响。根据获得的结果，将探索配方（例如，AD废水与固体废物馏分产生的生物炭相结合），以优化大麦生产，并促进麦芽生产系统中土壤生态系统服务的长期可持续性。

The Climate Emergency demands that innovative and effective mitigations are urgently developed to achieve a just transition to Net Zero. There is an increasing focus on how this can be tackled in the agricultural sector, while still maintaining production for a growing global population. This project, co-developed by academic and industry partners, will explore the potential for reducing the environmental impact of barley cultivation for the whisky industry. Whisky is the single most valuable Food and Drink product in the UK (£5.5Bn in 2020), but the barley cultivation stage contributes approximately 50% of the carbon footprint associated with each bottle produced. In large part, this is a consequence of chemical fertiliser use (both energy costs of manufacture and GHG fluxes from soil following application). Therefore, strategies to reduce use of chemical fertilisers, while maintaining sustainable grain production are urgently needed. The use of distillery wastes for energy production (biogas) through anaerobic digestion (AD) is already an established means of off-setting carbon costs of whisky manufacture. However, AD itself generates wastes with high-nutrient content (digestates) that have potentially deleterious environmental impacts (e.g. effluent discharges affecting water quality). Therefore, the specific aim of this project is to examine the potential value of AD wastes for use as fertiliser replacements, exploiting their high-nutrient value in barley cultivation and supporting circular economy principles through diversion from waste streams. The research will involve controlled environment and field trials to assess the fertiliser equivalence of AD wastes, quantifying growth and grain quality of malting barley, relative to chemical fertilisers. It is essential that impacts of AD wastes on soil health are neutral or positive, and the project will quantify effects of their application on soil biological diversity and functions. This will include isotopic approaches to quantify carbon and nutrient cycling processes in soils (including GHG fluxes and nutrient leaching), combined with molecular characterisation of microbial /faunal communities to determine associated impacts of AD waste application. Based on results obtained, formulations (e.g., AD effluent in combination with biochar generated from solid waste fractions) will be explored to optimise barley production and to foster long-term sustainability of soil ecosystem services in malting barley production systems.