Derived datasets of daily weather, near surface soil status, flow rates and concentrations of nitrogen species from the North Wyke farm platform, England.

Weather conditions, hydrological responses and the dynamics of key nitrogen species in field runoff were continuously monitored at 15-min resolution on the intensively instrumented North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP), a UK National Bioscience Research Infrastructure (NBRI), to support research on sustainable and resilient agriculture in the UK. Released data spanning 2013 to 2024 for 6 selected field catchments were aggregated to daily timestep, with reference to data quality flags, to produce continuous weather data, including maximum and minimum air temperature, daily total rainfall, wind speed and quality assured daily average soil moisture content, soil temperature at 15 cm depth, runoff rates, as well as nitrate, nitrite and ammonium concentrations. External data sources were sourced to infill some gaps for the weather data and summary statistics on data coverage were generated for the other data on an annual and seasonal basis where appropriate.

Impacts of different vegetation in riparian buffer strips on runoff and sediment loss.

Buffer strips continue to feature in the management of agricultural runoff and water pollution in many countries. Existing research has explored their efficacy for reducing environmental problems in different geoclimatic settings but, the evidence on the efficacy of different vegetation treatments is less abundant than that for other buffer strip characteristics, including width, and is more contradictory in nature. With policy targets for various environmental outcomes including water or air quality and net zero pointing to the need for conversion of agricultural land, the need for robust experimental evidence on the relative benefits of different vegetation types in buffer strips is now renewed.

Fertilizer produced from abattoir waste can contribute to phosphorus sustainability, and biofortify crops with minerals.

Our food security depends on finding a sustainable alternative to rock phosphate for fertilizer production. Furthermore, over 2 billion people worldwide are currently affected by micronutrient deficiencies, and crop concentrations of essential minerals are declining. This paper examines whether a novel multi-element fertilizer, Thallo®, can produce crop yields comparable to conventional rock phosphate derived fertilizers, and have an additional benefit of increasing essential mineral concentrations.

Assessment of bioavailable organic phosphorus in tropical forest soils by organic acid extraction and phosphatase hydrolysis.

Soil organic phosphorus contributes to the nutrition of tropical trees, but is not accounted for in standard soil phosphorus tests. Plants and microbes can release organic anions to solubilize organic phosphorus from soil surfaces, and synthesize phosphatases to release inorganic phosphate from the solubilized compounds. We developed a procedure to estimate bioavailable organic phosphorus in tropical forest soils by simulating the secretion processes of organic acids and phosphatases.

Markov process models of the dynamics of HIV reservoirs.

While latently infected CD4+ T cells are extremely sparse, they are a reality that prevents HIV from being cured, and their dynamics are largely unknown. We begin with a two-state Markov process that models the outcomes of regular but infrequent blood tests for latently infected cells in an HIV positive patient under drug therapy. We then model the hidden dynamics of a latently infected CD4+ T cell in an HIV positive patient and show there is a limiting distribution, which indicates in which compartments the HIV typically can be found.

Export of dissolved organic carbon and nitrate from grassland in winter using high temporal resolution, in situ UV sensing.

Co-deployment of two reagentless UV sensors for high temporal resolution (15 min) real time determination of wintertime DOC and nitrate-N export from a grassland lysimeter plot (North Wyke, Devon, UK) is reported. They showed rapid, transient but high impact perturbations of DOC (5.3-23 mg CL(-1)) and nitrate-N export after storm/snow melt which discontinuous sampling would not have observed.

Using artificial fluorescent particles as tracers of livestock wastes within an agricultural catchment.

Evidence for the movement of agricultural slurry and associated pollutants into surface waters is often anecdotal, particularly with relation to its 'particulate' components which receive less attention than 'bio-available' soluble phases. To assess the extent of movement of slurry particles artificial fluorescent particles were mixed with slurry and applied to a field sub-catchment within a headwater catchment. Particles were 2-60 μm in diameter and two different densities, 2.

Assessment of natural fluorescence as a tracer of diffuse agricultural pollution from slurry spreading on intensely-farmed grasslands.

The value of natural fluorescence in tracing diffuse pollution, in liquid phase, following slurry application to land was assessed by field experiment using twelve one hectare lysimeters on a heavy clay soil in Devon, UK, during autumn 2007. A strong linear relationship was found between natural fluorescence intensity and slurry concentration. The ratio of indices of tryptophan-like and fulvic/humic-like fluorescence (TI:FI) varied between 2 and 5 for a range of slurries sampled from Devon farms and allowed slurry to be distinguished from uncontaminated drainage waters (TI:FI<1).

Dissolved free and combined amino acids in surface runoff and drainage waters from drained and undrained grassland under different fertilizer management.

Organic matter is a valuable resource on which the sustainability and productivity of soils relies heavily. Thus, it is important to understand the mechanisms for the loss of organic compounds from soil. It is also essential to determine how these losses can be minimized, especially those resulting from anthropogenic activity.