UK ECN site. North Wyke (latitude 3o 54’ W; longitude 50o 46’N) lies in undulating countryside 7 km to the north of Dartmoor National Park, midway between the villages of South and North Tawton. The site covers 250 ha, of which 200 ha are grassland and 50 ha are deciduous woodland at an altitude of 120 m to 180 m. A lowland grassland site typical of conditions in wetter, western Britain, with predominately impermeable clays of the Culm Measures. ECN is funded through the Rothamsted Long-Term Experiments National Capability (LTE- NCG). Details available at http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/long-term-experiments-national-capability.

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General Characteristics, Purpose, History

Site Status:

existing

Year Site Established:

1992

Size :

250.00ha

Purpose of Site :

Lowland grassland agricultural ecosystem research site. North Wyke established itself nationally and internationally as a research centre for pastoral livestock systems. The research emphasis shifting from predominately agricultural production to one of more multi-functional land use taking account of the environmental implications of grassland farming. Current research at North Wyke is helping to address some of agriculture’s most pressing challenges, for example mitigating and adapting to climate change, protecting natural resources and sustaining the rural economy in grassland dominated regions. The North Wyke Farm Platform (https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/north-wyke-farm-platform) is a unique national and global research facility that is linked to real-world farming to study and improve grassland livestock systems.

History of Site:

North Wyke was an experimental farm from 1955-1981, belonging to Fisons Fertilisers, before the Grassland Research Institute acquired the site in September 1981 to study the efficiency of grassland production on heavy soils under high rainfall in SW England. A period of restructuring of research institutes resulted in the formation in the Institute of Grassland and Environmental research (IGER) in 1990. In March 2008 IGER ceased to exist and North Wyke was temporarily known as North Wyke Research before becoming part of Rothamsted Research in August 2009.

Parameters:

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Geographic

Coordinates:

Latitude: 50.766700000000
Longitude: -3.900000000000

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Site Details

Ecosystem and Environmental Characteristics

Elevation Range FROM:

120.00msl

Elevation Range TO:

180.00msl

Elevation - Average:

159.00msl

Air Temperature Range (Monthly Minimum) FROM:

4.70°C

Air Temperature: Average Annual:

9.34°C

Precipitation Minimum Monthly :

256.20mm

Precipitation Annual :

1 467.50mm

Precipitation Maximum Monthly :

495.60mm

Biome :

Grasslands

GEO-BON Biome:

Terrestrial

Ecosystem and Land Use:

Agricultural
Grasslands

Biogeographical Region:

Atlantic

Vegetation:

Most of the culm measure land is sown to long term leys, some of which have a high clover content. Deciduous woodlands cover 50 ha. In 1988 spaced trees were planted on 5 ha of land for an agroforestry experiment and a further 2 ha have been planted at conventional woodland density. Small pockets of semi-natural grassland and the deciduous woodlands have been left relatively unmanaged.

Soils:

The land area extends to 250 ha, the majority of which is poorly drained Culm Measures clays principally of the Hallsworth and Halstow series. Seven hectares are of free draining redland of the Crediton series.

eLTER Parameters

eLTER Parameters:

Network Affiliation and Network Specific Information

Affiliation:

LTER
eLTER (H2020)
eLTER catalogue
UK Environmental Change Network

LTER related

LTER Site Code:

LTER_EU_UK_051

LTER Site Classification/Category:

Master

Accreditation Status by LTER Member Network:

Accredited formal LTER facility

Protection Status and Resource Management

Management of Resources :

Yes

Management of Resources - Percent of Site:

75 - 100%

Management of Resources - Notes:

Agricultural research farm

Design and Scale of Site

Site Type (Spatial Design):

Complex Site

Scale of Observation:

plot without link to explicit catchment

Design of Observation:

mainly observation

Scale of Experiments:

micro sites

Design of Experiments:

partly experimentation

Infrastructure

Accessible All Year :

Yes

All parts of Site Accessible:

Yes

Access Type:

regular car

Permanent Power Supply:

Yes

Infrastructure:

Data infrastructure › Data storage › Structured file
Data infrastructure › Data storage › Spatial data file (GIS)
Data infrastructure › Data storage › Relational database
Data infrastructure › Data services › Data portal

Operation

Operation Notes:

ECN terrestrial monitoring is carried out at least once every 7 days

Permanent Operation:

Site Visit Interval:

Every 7 days

Maintenance Interval:

Every 7 days

Data Management

General Data Policy:

Access to the data is through an Open Government Licence

Data Policy Notes:

The ECN datasets are hosted by the NERC Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC - http://eidc.ceh.ac.uk/), managed by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) - https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/4971bce4-8a81-4e23-9637-7fcff37c5f21. They are available under the Open Government Licence and can be cited via DOI's (digital object identifier).

Data Policy URL:

data.ecn.ac.uk

Data Storage Location :

Central

Data services :

Data portal

Data Notes:

Data available via ECN Data Centre: http://data.ecn.ac.uk/index.asp

Associated Data

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