- Title: Fungi transplant experiment aims to revitalise degraded soil
- Date: 4th December 2024
- Summary: WEST SUSSEX, ENGLAND, UK (DECEMBER 4, 2025) (Reuters) CLOSE OF FUNGI FUNGI / TILT UP TO TREE VARIOUS MORE OF FUNGI
- Embargoed: 18th December 2024 20:06
- Keywords: Forestry England UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) fungi fungi transplant soil degradation soil health
- Location: West Sussex & London & York, England, UK / Riyadh, Saudi Arabia / File locations
- City: West Sussex & London & York, England, UK / Riyadh, Saudi Arabia / File locations
- Country: UK
- Topics: Climate Adaptation and Solution,Climate Change,Environment,Europe,General News
- Reuters ID: LVA001461904122024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Conservationists in England are spearheading a nature restoration experiment in North Yorkshire, moving fungi-rich soil from an ancient woodland to a newly established site.
The project aims to reintroduce missing fungi species integral to tree health and soil sustainability, potentially informing nationwide forest management practices.
The team from Forestry England, who manage and promote the country's public forests, extracted soil 'cores' from the ancient woodland of Hagg Wood and transplanted them to York Community Woodland, a new 78-hectare (192-acre) woodland site.
The cores harbour up to 300 essential fungi species, forming symbiotic relationships with trees and indicating a resilient ecosystem. However, environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling has shown these fungi are absent from many new woodlands.
"Soil is the basis of an ecosystem. The communities within the soil are extremely important for everything that grows within it," Andrew Stringer, Head of Environment at Forestry England, told Reuters.
The translocation experiment focuses on mycorrhizal fungi - fungi that form symbiotic relationships with plants - which help trees remain healthy and resilient to diseases and extreme weather.
"We're moving soil cores from the ancient woodland to the woodland creation site, and within that there'll be a whole community of fungi. And some of the most important ones are the mycorrhizal... those that are symbiotic with trees, helping trees grow, providing them with nutrients as well, sometimes an immune system as well," added Stringer.
The success of the fungi in their new environment is uncertain and will be monitored closely over the next ten years.
Stringer added that the method could potentially be used as a blueprint for tackling soil degradation in various parts of the world, serving as a valuable tool in the global fight against environmental degradation.
"The soil is our most important asset, but probably our most undervalued," he said.
"So we've got to actively intervene to restore soil health from pristine or really healthy, biodiverse sites. So this technique could be really important globally for biodiversity restoration and the health of our soils."
The translocation experiment comes as the UN's World Soil Day on December 5th emphasises the global importance of healthy soils for sustainable ecosystems.
A U.N.-backed study released on Sunday (December 1) said land degradation was "undermining Earth's capacity to sustain humanity" and failure to reverse it would "pose challenges for generations".
Land totalling around 15 million square kilometres - bigger than Antarctica - was already degraded, and was growing by about 1 million square kilometres each year, it added.
Soil erosion could lead to a 10% loss in global crop production by 2050, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). With the world's population forecast to rise by a fifth to nearly 10 billion by then, malnutrition and famine is set to affect more and more people.
"In soils the right balance of fungi and bacteria is very important to maintain a healthy soil for both forests as well as agricultural lands. Today, due to intensive farming practices, we see that the fungal diversity and the population in soils have come down drastically. This is reducing the capacity of the soils against climate change in a very big way," said environmental campaigner Anand Ethirajalu.
"Unless we have a healthy living soil, we cannot produce healthy living food, which means we cannot have healthy living human beings," he added.
(Production: Matt Stock) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None