​​Farmers are asked to bury burnt wood (charcoal) to sequester the carbon and prevent CO₂ release

 Its long been known that burying the ash from fires helps improve the soil, but can burying burnt organic matter in the absence of oxygen help sequester carbon in the soil. Researchers at the University of Nottingham are asking farmers to bury burnt organic matter - essentially carbon in the soil as a means of locking the carbon in the soil and prevent carbon dioxide being produced. If organic matter is buried then microorganisms essentially break this material down into carbon dioxide, but burning the organic matter first produces just carbon, which is not such a good feedstock for bacteria so the material should be an excellent way of removing much of the carbon that would make carbon dioxide.



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