Titled 'Sureroot', the £2.5 million five-year project will take place in North Wyke, Devon.
Funded by BBSRC, the project will be led by scientists at Aberystwyth University’s Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) in partnership with Rothamsted Research.
The research comes as large areas of the UK face continued flooding. Many river catchments are upland grasslands and are in the wettest areas of the UK. If the rates of surface run-off could be reduced and rainfall captured more effectively by grassland soils, then the worst impacts of heavy rainfall down-stream may be reduced.
Earlier research funded by BBSRC found a specific option with the forage hybrid, Festulolium, had more water and nutrient-use efficiency.
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“Their large well developed root systems combat flooding, reduce soil erosion and compaction and offer opportunities for significant carbon capture and storage at depth in soils,” said Dr Mike Humphreys, leader of the IBERS project.
Grass root-soil interactions instigated a change in soil structure leading to increased water retention with a prolonged and significant 51 per cent reduction in rainfall run-off compared with equivalent grasses that were grown alongside and that are currently used extensively throughout the UK.
The Sureroot project will assess the efficiency and effectiveness of these and other new grasses, both for their agricultural production under a range of alternative livestock management systems and for their flood mitigation properties at different locations in the UK and at different scales.
Professor Phil Murray, Rothamsted Research said: “If the grasses behave as we predict then they will be another ‘green engineering’ tool to alleviate flooding.”