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A Shaky Start for Bruce

SAC Soil Scientist Bruce Ball's trip to New Zealand got off to a shaky start when he heard about the earthquake in New Zealand just two days before he and his wife were due to fly there. However every cloud has a silver lining. When he and Louise made it to Christchurch, Lincoln University was closed, forcing them to delay the work and take a weeks holiday.

Bruce is in New Zealand on a project funded at the Lincoln end by the Global Research Alliance. He is working on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions at the University's Greenhouse Gas Research Centre. He is investigating how simulated hoof compaction by dairy cows influences the effectiveness of a nitrification inhibitor to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from the soil under urine patches.

Needless to say one of his first jobs on his "holiday" was the collection of urine from the dairy cows as they awaited milking. Bruce reports it was quite a new experience for him, as is living with the aftershocks from the earthquake!

Dr Ball has taken out SAC Crop and Soil System's Air Permeameter and he has been teaching staff how to use this while also assessing the soil structure, both measurements largely developed at SAC. The study of soils has a much higher profile in New Zealand than in the UK and students at Lincoln have just inaugurated their own Soils Society. Bruce's host and partner in crime is Prof. Keith Cameron (see photo), another ex-University of Aberdeen soils graduate.

In November Bruce and Louise move on from Christchurch and travel to North Island to work with Graham Shepherd, a soils consultant from Palmerston North. Graham is an expert on visual soil structure assessment. Together they intend to work on relating visual assessment of soil, landscape and crops to nitrous oxide emission and carbon storage.

Unfortunately (for them) Bruce and Louise will be back before Christmas, leaving the warm summer weather behind.

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