Coalain Mc Creanor joins Queen’s University Belfast as a PhD student to work on the Hillsborough long-term experiment in N. Ireland. Photo credit: Jonathan Holland.
In collaboration with the AFBI and DAERA, Coalain’s PhD focuses on the long-term slurry experiment in Hillsborough where cow, pig and artificial fertilizer has been applied to plots of soil at various continuous rates since 1970.
The project will look at how trace element accumulation rates from this application have influenced the soil and the downstream effects of their cycling within the rhizosphere. The additives will have caused a range of different impacts to the soil which will be measured on a temporal scale. It will also be compared with analogous studies (soil samples will be collected from cattle farms across Northern Ireland).
The focus of the project is on the trace elements, its effects on the microbial community, and how this could have an impact of the carbon sequestering capacity of the soil. While these plots have been analysed extensively, how these three influences are interlinked has not been looked at. Additionally, the project has the potential to investigate the ability of plants to negate the effects of toxic elements which might reveal some of the mechanisms behind this.
This research has the potential to help farmers better understand how the fertilizer they apply can increase their pasture productivity and yield by changing the soil microbial diversity to increase the carbon sequestration rate. This will be of growing interest to farmers and land-users to mitigate their net carbon emissions. As he is just starting his research, Coalain would be happy to hear from any other researchers who are interested in his work.
Coalain has previously been involved in projects which have touched on some of these research areas. With a keen interest in trace elements, his research career started from studying speciation of arsenic in thyme plants. He has looked at interactions of trace elements in podzols in Northern Ireland forests, and he has collaborated with Spanish and Bangladesh universities. He has also spent time researching Swiss grown rice at the University of Bern with Agroscope, and separately in ETH Zurich facilitating Middle Eastern farmers in a research partnership funded project. He finds the opportunity to work on a unique project with detailed archives and data in Northern Ireland exciting and fascinating.
His PhD supervisors are: Andrew Meharg, Caroline Meharg and Jonathan Holland.
Photo of COALAIN at Switzerland’s Lake Brienz. (Credit to Rebekah Clenaghan)
