Rémi Cardinael

With this natural aridity gradient, the #RAIZ Project experiments with farmers a basket of options towards more climate-smart cropping systems, and this is complemented with our on-station rainfall exclusion experiment in Harare. #climatechange #adaptation #foodsecurity #diversification

But this time in a more water-limited environment.
The district is in AgroEcological Zone (AEZ) III (650-800mm, semi-intensive farming) & in AEZ IV (450-650 mm, semi-extensive farming). More droughts and dry spells, more livestock than in Murehwa which is in AEZ II (750-1000mm, intensive farming).

Again, some demonstration plots and trials with #legumes, sorghum, maize, cowpea, mucuna, #intercropping, integrated #soilfertility management. Also more soil profiles, and some serious infestation with witchweed in some plots...

Another day, another district... #RAIZ Project field days in Mutoko! Same success 👏 , same energy, same willingness of farmers, extension officers, scientists and students to share experience and knowledge. Even us scientists learn a lot during these days.

Then an experiment with mucuna grown as a green manure to improve soil fertility, and replicated in about 300 farms, and finally observed soil profiles. #sustainableintensification

Great success for the #RAIZ Project field days in Murehwa 🇿🇼! Congrats to the team for organizing such a very nice event!

We first visited demo plots showing maize 🌽 or sorghum without #fertilizers, with #manure, with both manure and fertilizers, and with or without #intercropping with cowpea.

Choosing the appropriate methodology to monitor soil organic carbon (SOC) in croplands: aligning methods with evolving monitoring reporting verification (MRV) frameworks Monitoring soil organic carbon (SOC) has gained significant recognition, not only for national greenhouse gas inventories but also for voluntary carbon markets and agri-environmental policies. This...

#JustOut Check out this #openaccess paper led by Ainhoa Ihasusta
doi.org/10.1080/1758...

We analyse current SOC monitoring methodologies for croplands and proposes a decision tree to help MRV stakeholders select the monitoring strategy considered most appropriate for their context

New analysis confirms global warming is accelerating. "all data sources agree: the warming rate has been far higher during the last decade than any previous." agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Three years after, we came back to the same two paired-sites inside and outside of protection areas in Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 for the 2nd #SoilBON sampling campaign @soilbon.bsky.social ! And this time, instead of #teabags, we also buried wood sticks to study litter decomposition #soilhealth #soilbiodiversity

Illiana Kwenda successfully defended her MPhil "Performance of Maize and Legume Fodder Crops Under Current and Future Climate: A Case Study in Mutoko District, Zimbabwe" @gatienfalconnier.bsky.social

Her first article below, a 2nd one is in the making. Well done Illiana 👏 !
doi.org/10.1016/j.fc...

Do we have globally representative data to understand soil processes? We set out to explore this in our Letter that’s in press at Biogeochemistry

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

It's tomorrow !

Thank you @pablogarciapal.bsky.social ! I will learn a lot in this project, and of course enjoy the amazing biodiversity of Hwange National Park 🇿🇼 #Big5 !

This morning was the online kickoff meeting of the #ELECASE project "ELephants Engineering of dry woodland and consequences for CArbon Sequestration" @agencerecherche.bsky.social
Such an exciting (and challenging) project for the next 5 years 🤩 ! @cirad.bsky.social @cnrs.fr
anr.fr/Project-ANR-...

Great to see our paper making the cover of @globalchangebio.bsky.social ! With a picture of a long-term experiment in Kenya 🇰🇪 @johansix.bsky.social
@cirad.bsky.social @gatienfalconnier.bsky.social @mcorbeels.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

It's tomorrow!

Open-source AI tool beats giant LLMs in literature reviews — and gets citations right Nature - Researchers can deploy the cheap and transparent model on their own computer system.

Researchers have published the recipe for an artificial-intelligence model that reviews the scientific literature better than some major LLMs are able to, and gets the citations correct as often as human experts do

go.nature.com/4klVw4v

The diversity of soil types, farming systems, tree species in such a small area is really striking. It is actually quite difficult to find a small plot without trees!
It was great to spend time in the field to discuss protocols with colleagues (and enjoying some fresh mangoes 🥭!)

for the PhD thesis of Milton Oboka and of Isaack Hassan Adan from the University of Embu. In the next 3 years, they will study crop and tree productivity, carbon, nitrogen and water cycling, soil biodiversity, pests, pollination...

What a fantastic week in the field in Embu county, Kenya 🇰🇪! We visited many farmers in the 4 wards (Mbeti South, Nthawa, Makima, Mavuria) of the GALILEO EU-AU project @cirad.bsky.social living lab, to identify paired #agroforestry - non agroforesty plots

However, we also found out that integrated soil-fertility management (#ISFM), combining organic and mineral fertilizers, can be seen as a no-regret climate change adaptation strategy, capable of sustaining and substantially increasing yields, even under #climatechange.

In #subSaharanAfrica, #soildegradation threatens #maize yields as much as #climatechange

www.cirad.fr/en/press-are...

We used 4 long-term experiments in sub-Saharan Africa (2 from Kenya, 1 from Côte d'Ivoire, 1 from Zimbabwe) and an ensemble of 15 calibrated soil-crop models to show that hashtag#soilfertility decline over time can impact maize 🌽 yields even more than climate change.

#JustOut Have a look to this important study published in @globalchangebio.bsky.social and brilliantly led by my colleague Antoine Couëdel @cirad.bsky.social, well done Antoine 👏 ! @gatienfalconnier.bsky.social @mcorbeels.bsky.social @johansix.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

But now I will be able to contribute with a new role! Can't wait to meet and work with my fellow colleagues on this report!

Also a real honor to apparently be the first @cirad.bsky.social scientist to serve as an IPCC Lead Author 😊.

I previoulsy had the chance to take part as a Contributing Author in the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Volume 4 - Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use, Chapter 5 - Cropland.
www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2019r...

in the Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Use (AFOLU) sector.
www.ipcc.ch/report/2027-...

🤩! What an honor to serve as an @ipcc.bsky.social Lead Author for the "2027 #IPCC Methodology Report on #CarbonDioxideRemoval Technologies, Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage for National #GreenhouseGas Inventories (Additional guidance)", for the topic related to #soils-based CDR

in the Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Use (AFOLU) sector.
www.ipcc.ch/report/2027-...

First scientific paper of his PhD (more to come soon!):
doi.org/10.1016/j.fc...