Further in the field

Day three of the Woolworths Agricultural Business Scholarship continued....

Woolies Ag Scholars check out about the whole-tree chambers at HIE for elevated CO2 experiments to explore the trade-off between water use and carbon gain under a range of environmental conditions.

The Woolies Ag Scholars toured the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at the University of Western Sydney.

We were shown the forefront of Australian research into measuring the potential impacts of climate change on Australian ecosystems.

Rainout shelters at HIE - used for large tree experiments (once the trees grow bigger!) to simulate changes in rainfall and intensity and examine the effects.

Although there is alot of study to still be completed, we did learn that based on current information, if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were to continue to increase, it would actually enable plants to effectively become more efficient:

• As they would be higher yielding,
• Require less nitrogen for the same amount of production, and
• Have improvements in water use efficiency of up to 10%.

This raises some interesting questions and has some interesting implications for agricultural production.

EucFACE at HIE - Free air CO2 enrichment field experiment in existing native woodland ecosystems to explore the response to rising CO2 under natural conditions. 6 circular arrays 23m tall by 25 side have been built within the current vegetation. The series of pipes will introduce extra CO2 to increase levels to simulate the potential effects of climate change.