Warning some soil carbon estimates could be significantly overstated
A soil sample taken from a grassland field that is dried and sieved in the laboratory into fine and coarse fragments. The coarse proportion must be removed from the calculations of SOC stocks. This is the gold standard approach for measuring bulk density and estimating SOC stocks and represents best practice.
New Teagasc research just published highlights the consequences of not measuring soil organic carbon stocks in Irish grassland soils precisely.
Quantifying changes in carbon levels, either carbon sequestration or losses into the atmosphere, requires accurate determination of soil bulk density, which is only achieved by accounting for soil stone content (rock fragments higher than 2mm in size).
