The Use of Micropropagated Founder Material with Top-down Irrigation: A Novel Approach for Sphagnum Farming in a Lowland Environment

Paludiculture is the cultivation of wetland crops on rewetted peat soils. It represents a new agricultural paradigm offering solutions to peatland degradation by restoring Ecosystem Services (ES) and maintaining land productivity. Sphagnum moss is a paludiculture crop, produced via Sphagnum farming (SF), which has several uses, particularly peat replacement in growing media.

The conventional SF approach uses the Moss Layer Transfer Technique (MLTT) to provide founder material from a donor site with surface irrigation via raised water tables. This method is challenging in the UK lowland agricultural context as donor Sphagnum sites are scarce, and there is reluctance to raise water levels within a conventional agricultural landscape.

This thesis presents a novel alternative SF option, the Micropropagated-Irrigation-From-Above ‘MIFA’ approach. Micropropagated Sphagnum requires very small amounts of donor material and overhead irrigation removes the need for active water table management, removing some current SF challenges.

The effectiveness of the MIFA approach on Sphagnum hydrology and growth was monitored across three pilot studies and two experimental field sites in the UK via hydrological and growth measurements.

Sphagnum water availability was assessed via pore water pressure (PWP) measurements. Across the field sites, the MIFA approach resulted in PWP measurements broadly equivalent to literature values for natural peatland systems and better than those recorded for a drained peatlands capable of supporting Sphagnum growth.

Sphagnum growth was assessed up to 24 months post-establishment via Terrestrial Laser scanning (TLS), with Sphagnum carpet height increases of up to 16cm recorded. Suggesting in some cases, growth under the MIFA approach was comparable or better than Sphagnum grown under conventional SF approach.

The results demonstrate that the MIFA approach produces a good Sphagnum crop across two contrasting sites, offering a viable alternative to the MLTT approach for Sphagnum farming in areas where the conventional SF approach is problematic.