Research projects

Agroforestry is a land management system which combines livestock grazing and forestry – the old experimental system at Glensaugh has been in place since 1988; and the new one since 2023.

FARM TREE: balancing farm and landscape-scale demands for integrating trees on agricultural landFARM TREE is funded by the UKRI Future of UK

We are assessing whether blanket bog restoration can aid in protecting or enhancing recovery from the impacts of nitrogen deposition.

This research is investigating how innovative grassland management, combining plant species diversification with rotational grazing, can reduce GHG emissions and produce multiple benefits for livestock, biodiversity and climate resilience.

This research compares the impacts of heather moorland managed by muirburn versus by brushcutting. This trial has focussed on studying early changes in carbon stocks, plant litter decomposition and soil nutrient availability.

This project aims to better quantify the impacts of upland peatland / blanket bog restoration on carbon and water dynamics. We are measuring water table levels, and the quality and quantity of carbon dissolved and eroded in streams and gullies in both degraded and restored areas of the bog.

This long-term experiment is tracking how pine trees grown from seed from Caledionan pinewoods across Scotland respond to climate change, pests and diseases.

This experiment is investigating whether increasing the number of plant species in grazed grasslands can help other biodiversity and increase the quality of the forage.

VisitGlensaugh is a scoping study which aimed to accumulate understanding of what the farm has to offer consumers, tourists and other visitors by building on the Glensaugh ‘story’, past, present and future.

The Natural Capital Protocol (The “Protocol”) has been applied to Glensaugh farm  to evaluate the impacts and dependencies of past, actual, and potential changes in Glensaugh farm management strategies through a natural capital lens.

The Land Use for Net Zero, Nature and People (LUNZ) Hub is an innovative research initiative that will help drive the transformation of UK land use needed to achieve net zero by 2050. 

PineBiome is a collaborative project that aims to quantify how host genotype and microbiome composition combine to influence susceptibility to Dothistroma needle blight disease in pine trees.

The character of the Scottish upland landscape is shaped by domestic livestock grazing. The James Hutton Institute and collaborators have been conducting a grazing experiment at the Woodland Trust’s Glen Finglas estate, in the southern Highlands, since 2002.

CODECS aims to support farmers and growers across Europe to improve their understanding of the social, economic and environmental benefits and costs of digital tools.

COEVOLVERS is a four-year EU funded project, exploring how to more actively involve communities in nature-based activities across Europe.

The James Hutton Institute is taking part in LOWINFOOD, an EU-funded multi-actor project aimed to design low-waste food value chains through the demonstration of innovative solutions to reduce food loss and waste.

NINE aims to develop our understanding of the impacts of nitrogen deposition on natural ecosystems in Scotland in the context of changing climate and land-use pressures.

MOORCO stands for moorland colonisation and is an umbrella project encompassing four different experimental platforms that study the impact of woodland expansion onto heather dominated moorland.

The Tree of Knowledge (ToK) is a collaborative project bringing together three UKRI Future of UK Treescapes projects: MEMBRA, newLEAF, and DiversiTree. Our goal is to communicate the complexity of forest resilience, exchanging knowledge and synthesizing the findings from these projects.