Government consultation on phasing out peat use

[alan refail]

A further thought:

Reducing the horticultural use of peat in England

Will peat continue in use in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?

[Johnboy]

Hi Elle,
Other countries will be able to export their plants grown in Peat to this country and this is why considering the amount of Peat that gets burnt to produce electricity about 98% and 2% to horticulture. DEFRA are prepared to put the horticultural industry on an unlevel playing field for what started off as an organic scam. As a result home gardeners get the rough end of the stick with their growing requirements which really is disgraceful.
If you want to know about the scam I will willingly give the details!
JB.

[John Walker]

@Johnboy

The Jekka's Herb Farm website states that they use an 'organic, peat-free compost based on wood fibre and bark.' I'm sure they would be happy to tell you more about it and whether they mix their own or buy it in - 01454 418878. They also hold public open days throughout the growing season so a visit might be informative.

http://www.jekkasherbfarm.com/index.asp

Melcourt have supplied peat-free composts to commercial growers for many years and their web site is worth a visit: http://www.melcourt.co.uk/index.html

I can't comment on Jekka McVicar's 'wealth' any more than you can. Perhaps the fact that she has been running a successful business growing herbs in peat-free compost to Soil Association organic standards for 25 years has something to do with it. Do 62 Royal Horticultural Society Gold medals (including 14 from Chelsea Flower Show) suggest she might be having just a little success without peat?

I hope you might concede that Jekka's Herb Farm is living proof that growing peat-free is entirely feasible - and profitable.

Believe me I am very well aware of the dilemma faced by us gardeners, but I am also aware of the damage being done to the natural world through peat extraction. The growing threat of climate change adds even more urgency to the need to leave peat safely in the ground. Digging up peat releases the carbon it previously stored, which is raising the atmospheric levels of carbon and warming the lower atmosphere. That this happens is indisputable. If you have credible information to the contrary I would like to see it. So I am not using global warming as an 'excuse' to argue for an end to peat use - the two things are inseparably linked. I don't know what 'truth' you want me to reveal; climate science is telling us all we need to know.

And let's not forget destruction of pristine natural habitats, including peat bogs. Do you agree we should be doing all we can to protect and preserve them for the benefit of both ourselves and future generations? What about the role of peat bogs in keeping our water supplies clean, in alleviating flood risk, in supporting wildlife and in providing us with wild and serene landscapes in which to wander? Do you think those things are important? Wouldn't it be better to do all we can to avoid peat use when we know viable peat-free and ecologically sustainable composts already exist - such as those used by Jekka McVicar?

[John Walker]

@Alan Refail

I have never said peat-free composts are perfect - quite the contrary. I devoted an entire article in Kitchen Garden to how many peat-free composts are not up to scratch and how I think we ought to be prepared to pay substantially more for them to get quality. We are not going to get grower quality peat-free compost if we insist on being seduced by 'three bags for a tenner' deals. It just isn't going to happen. As with everything else in life, we get what we pay for.

http://www.kitchengarden.co.uk/news/compost-crisis

I have had disappointing results with peat-free. Among the composts I tried this year were Fertile Fibre (coir), which was expensive and turned into a disaster for seed-raising, but was OK when potting up established plants. I tried a few small bags of peat-reduced from Tesco (peat plus wood fibre) and it was like sowing into and potting up with stale porridge. The most consistent brand was New Horizon Multi-Purpose, but even some bags of this gave me early climbing beans grown under cover with leaves three times their usual size (too much nitrogen, I suspect). I also experimented with my own mixes of one third each of leaf mould, molehill soil and peat-free compost, which gave pretty good results although I didn't feed anywhere near enough.

So my own results with peat-free are patchy, but understanding the environmental consequences of peat use makes me even more determined to stick with peat-free, not less, and to do what I can to try and get the standard of peat-free composts raised. Let's not forget that we invariably hear the 'bad news' stories about peat-free compost and some gardening pundits make some very big mountains out of the odd molehill. Success stories seem to elude the 'front page' at the best of times.

I agree that labelling is a problem. I've bought bags where the description is vague. Some bags of Vital Earth compost nearly asphyxiated me on the way home in the car because they stank to high heaven. I suspect they contained poultry manure as part of the mix. But crops grew well in it. Resistance to clear labelling is probably driven by a worry that it will put gardeners off. Honesty might well be a better policy - along with some information on why a bag of peat-free compost is far less environmentally damaging than a bag of peat-based.

If I had to pick one brand of peat-free then I'd go for New Horizon Multi-Purpose (which is also one of the peat-free composts that Which? Gardening gave their 'best buy' to in trials this year).

What are the peat-free experiences of others?

[snooky]

I had good very good results from B&Q Multipurpose compost last year and if I remember correctly,they were 'three for a Tenner'.

[peter]

Mixed, one brand that was good in 2008, the following year resembled deconstructed OSB, on othet words it was literally wood flakes, I ended up using it as soil improver on my allotment.

So thats how I treat the stuff now, try and find a damaged bag/bale to check before, buying and use crappy stuff on the allotment. If I have unopened rubbish I return it and swap for something else, which I had to with Homebase own brand in 2010.

Nice to see some practical guidance from you JW, ages.since I've seen the old molehill soil tip for compost

[alan refail]

I had good very good results from B&Q Multipurpose compost last year and if I remember correctly,they were 'three for a Tenner'.

Hi Snooky

...and not peat-free either!

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?a ... egories%3C

[John]

I agree with you there, Alan and Snooky.
This is by far and away the best MP compost around at the moment and its full of lovely peat!
I always pick up a few bags when I visit a B&Q shed to add to my stock of the stuff. With all these sorts of compost the composition or source can change and the best can become the worst almost overnight but its certainly the best at the moment.

John

[Cider Boys]

It seems to be an accepted fact on this forum (promoted by some) that peat digging adds to global warming, however there are many that argue that producing a peat based compost that is then used to raise plants that in turn take back and store carbon makes it carbon neutral.

At least Somerset County Council take a more pro-peat enlightened view.

http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Pe ... ticle.html

Barney

[John Walker]

@Cider Boys

That drained and dug peat oxidises to release carbon dioxide (the main global warming gas) is indeed scientific fact. Peat bogs contain huge stores of carbon locked safely away. When they are disturbed huge quantities of carbon are released. Every bag of peat-based compost we use is releasing more carbon. If you have information to the contrary I am genuinely interested in seeing it.

The idea that by growing plants in peat compost somehow soaks back up the carbon released by digging up the peat in the first place is certainly an interesting one. However, the only circumstances in which this might possibly work (and then probably only a very limited extent) is when the compost is used to grow woody plants i.e. shrubs but most importantly trees. Woody plants do indeed lock carbon away in their stems, branches and trunks for long periods of time (but this is released again when they die and rot or are burnt). So woody plants, especially fast-growing trees, can act as relatively short-term carbon sinks, and this is one area where gardeners can help to play a part in putting the brakes on global warming.

However your suggestion falls down because when we dig peat bogs we are releasing fossil carbon into the atmosphere (peat is after all a fossil fuel like oil, coal and natural gas). So you are suggesting we dig peat, which releases carbon dioxide, then grow plants to soak the carbon back up again - which might possibly happen to a limited extent. For this to be a 'carbon neutral' process then all the carbon released by the peat would need to be soaked back up by the plant (what is released must be cancelled out by what is absorbed and locked away in solid form i.e. the wood).

In the case of non-woody plants - say soft and sappy bedding plants - this wouldn't happen. When bedding plants (or annual vegetables) are growing they do absorb carbon dioxide, but when we compost them at the end of the season virtually all the carbon is re-released (a little stays behind as organic matter). Therefore it is not possible to use the carbon neutral argument for non-woody plants - and peat is used to grow an awful lot of them. Again, if you have any information that runs counter to this I would be interested in seeing it.

Using peat-free compost to grow woody plants probably moves us closer to the carbon neutral idea because no carbon has been released to produce the compost they are grown in. Indeed, peat-free woody plants are likely, over time, to be 'carbon positive' i.e. they are locking away more carbon than has been released by growing them. And of course there is no destruction of natural habitat because no peat is used.

The link you give suggests that Somerset County Council might just be a tad business-friendly, and are anything but 'enlightened' when it comes to understanding and protecting our natural world. What a sad development. As more gardeners become better informed about the ecological implications of using peat this kind of thing will become a rare event.

I'm interested in your response to my previous question:

This is surely the perfect catch 22: we willingly destroy natural habitat (i.e. the peat deposits in Somerset or elsewhere) to help in the 'preservation of wildlife'. Are you serious?

[Cider Boys]

Of course Somerset County Council are being a tadd business friendly, they live in the real world where a balance of interests should be considered. Peat extraction in Somerset has been going on for many years even the Romans carried it out.

As for your catch22 question you pose, yes I am serious.

The complication in picking on one after another small contribution to Global Warming is to ignore the true cause, that of a population growth in the western world that can not be substained by carbon friendly means.

Our Authorities are hoping (and will) build even more thousands of houses in my once very rural county, most placed near to the M5 motorway to add to the commuter masses to and from Bristol or Exeter. This will result in more damage than digging a bit of peat.

Banning a traditional way of life and employment for indigenous rural people just because it makes some people feel better that they are 'so called helping the planet' whilst at the same time ignoring our country's over population is to me hypocritical and somewhat sanctimonous. (I'm not impying that you are ignoring the effects of population growth.)

Peat extraction in Somerset has to satisfy strict planning rules and little harm if any occurs in its extraction but many benefits to horticulture, rural life and wildlife are the result from it.

Please explain to me (I admit to not being an academic) is there a difference in digging up some peat and letting someone else use it for a seed bed and digging or ploughing a field of peat to plant some seeds in it? Is it not just the aerobic acceleration in the decomposition of the peat that unlocks the carbon? At the same time don't many scientists argue this is insignificant to global warming when compared to the release of methane gas from the unharvested peat moors and bogs? This peat scare and proposed ban on its use (only in the UK) is typical of the ill-considered knee jerk policies that we all have had to suffer from for far too many years.

It is the peat workings that have given rise to such a special landscape as the Somerset Levels and Moors and I for one will be campaigning to support its responsible continuance. (Unless convinced otherwise.)

Barney

[Johnboy]

John Walker,
"I can't comment on Jekka McVicar's 'wealth' any more than you can."
Your pedantic remark is noted and belies the pettiness of your whole argument! Jekka McVicar is a successful company and it was the company to which I referred to, as well you might have known.
No supplier of Non-Peat products would dare supply Jekka with the rubbish that is forced on an unsuspecting public. People believe that what they are buying is of good quality only to find that they are having difficulties raising anything meaningful using a great deal of what is purported to be MP Compost. The time has come when the non-peat faction must start to take responsibility for their actions and insist that higher qualities in non-peat products are brought about and a British Standard is instituted before their high handed actions.
With regards to Sedge Peat I stand very firmly behind Barney and Somerset Sedge Peat has been very sensibly and sensitively handled and I suspect that it has vastly different carbon storing qualities to Sphagnum Moss Peat.
If Sedge Peat is not sensitively handled it will die out and will not be the carbon sink that you think it will be or is.
I have never read anything in the Anti-Peat Use Factions literature with regards to Methane, which all bogs give off, and Methane is said by the Global Warming Faction to be a greenhouse gas at least 20 times more dangerous to the atmosphere than carbon. This country is actively planting Peat Bogs which runs contra to the global warming aspect.
I am very much against the banning of anything until there is a standard established for any alternative and Peat is at the forefront of the list.
JB.

[alan refail]

Morning Johnboy

With regard to methane emission from peat bogs, there is some Defra-funded research going on at Leeds University, which recognises the complexity of the situation:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/863 ... arbon_sink

The link is just a short press release, but it contains some relevant comments which cast some doubt on the simplistic arguments of anti-peat-at-all-costs campaign.

Restoring damaged peatland by blocking man-made drainage channels (known as grips) has been proposed as a way of reversing this trend making peat bogs become a net ,'carbon sink', where more CO2 is taken up by plant photosynthesis than is released through decay.

Lead researcher Professor Andy Baird, from the University of Leeds, said: "If managed correctly, peatlands have the potential to play an important part in the fight against climate change. However, the effect of such restoration measures on future climate is not fully understood.

"There is evidence to suggest that restoring peatlands by blocking man-made drainage channels will cause them to release methane - a greenhouse gas 20-times more potent than CO2.

"Until now, methane has been ignored when estimating the benefits of peatland, but because it is so potent, it has the potential to contribute more to global warming than CO2. If this is the case there is a chance that peatland restoration could do more harm than good in terms of contributing to climate change.

[Johnboy]

Morning Alan,
I find the below statement to be totally incredulous! Why is it at this late stage when even helicopters have been used to get plants up onto hillsides that DEFRA had not commissioned this research long long ago.

"Until now, methane has been ignored when estimating the benefits of peatland, but because it is so potent, it has the potential to contribute more to global warming than CO2. If this is the case there is a chance that peatland restoration could do more harm than good in terms of contributing to climate change."

I suspect that there are too many lobbyists getting at DEFRA.
JB.

[mreed]

Interesting discussion - there has been a lot of work done on the effects of peatland restoration on methane emissions. For a long time the jury was out, with conflicting evidence from different studies, but consensus is now emerging amongst the academic community that the climate benefits of restoration outweigh the disbenefits of methane production over the long-term, and with a targeted approach to restoration, not necessarily restoring everything everywhere. For the two latest independent reviews on this topic led by key experts in this field, see:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/Peatbogs_ ... 255200.pdf
http://iucn-uk-peatlandprogramme.org/co ... matechange

Hope this helps,

Mark Reed
Acting Director, Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability
Senior Lecturer, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen