England has committed to creating around 260,000 hectares of new woodland over the coming decades.  With planting steered aware from high-grade farmland and sensitive peat soils, the upland fringe – the transitional landscape between open fells and enclosed farmland – is playing an increasingly important role in delivering woodland creation at scale.

Yet we know from experience across the partnership, that woodland establishment in these landscapes can vary significantly.  Even where grazing by sheep, cattle and deer has been reduced and planting follows best practice guidance, tree survival and growth are not consistent across sites.

Through this new research, we aim to understand whether below-ground recovery is a missing piece of the puzzle.

Mycorrhizal fungi are microscopic soil organisms that form essential partnerships with tree roots. They act as underground support networks, helping trees access nutrients and water in exchange for carbon.  While their importance for tree growth is well established, their role in shaping restoration success across long-grazed upland landscapes remains little explored at landscape scale.

Our research will take place across Wild Haweswater, a landscape restoration partnership between the RSPB and landowner United Utilities, and surrounding upland landscapes. Naddle Forest, one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of temperate rainforest, will be used as a reference for long-term ecological recovery.

The project is led by our Lead Conservation Scientist, Dr Mo Verhoeven in partnership with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and the RSPB.

Over the coming months, our team will:

• Use soil DNA sequencing to identify which fungal communities are present and which are absent
• Compare fungal communities across different land uses and management histories.
• Run long-term grazing trials to understand how management influences below-ground recovery.
• Test how locally-sourced soil inoculation, using containing mycorrhizal communities from temperate rainforest, improves the survival and growth of native trees such as oak and birch once planted into the landscape.

A key focus will be whether soils currently dominated by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, commonly associated with grasses and herbs in grazed systems, shift toward ectomycorrhizal fungi, which are more closely linked to trees and woodland ecosystems, as restoration progresses.

We will also assess whether that shift happens naturally once grazing pressure changes or whether targeted support is required to rebuild fungal communities.

The research is just beginning and results will take time.  However, our goal is clear: to build a stronger evidence base for woodland creation in Cumbria’s upland fringe.

By understanding how underground ecosystems respond alongside tree planting and changes in grazing management, we hope to:

• Improve confidence in woodland creation projects
• Reduce uncertainty and variation in tree survival
• Support farmers and land managers across our partnership
• Inform future restoration guidance at regional and national level.

Cumbria Connect is a partnership of landowners and conservation organisations including Lowther estate, the RSPB, United Utilities and Natural England.  Together we are supporting nature-friendly farming, restoring ecological processes and addressing the biodiversity crisis across Cumbria’s landscapes.

As we expand woodland in the upland fringe, we will work with natural processes above and below ground.  This new research marks an important step in understanding the hidden fungal networks that may shape the future of Cumbria’s treescapes.