Until recently, quantifying the amount of standing carbon in agricultural and natural lands has relied on broad estimation. Dr. John Williams (Pacific Agroecology LLC’s Chief Scientific Officer) recently published with colleagues one of the first papers of its kind.  By looking at natural habitats adjacent to vineyards in California’s Mendocino wine country, and in the vineyards themselves, they were able to show a ten-fold increase in standing carbon stocks in natural lands compared to lands under vine.  Interestingly, soil carbon remained roughly equal.  Read more about these findings in their detailed analysis in Carbon Balance & Management.

Vines prepared for destructive sampling to assess carbon content.

Pacific Agroecology LLC is spearheading new techniques in landscape scale carbon assessment.