---
title: Why One in Five Planted Trees Die Before They Can Help Britain Reach Net Zero – And How Rhizocore Is Fixing It
description: UK tree planting lags targets, risking net zero aims. Edinburgh biotech Rhizocore pairs trees with fungi to lift survival to 97% and attract £4.5m to scale.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2025-11-24T16:12:17.000Z
updated: 2026-02-26T18:01:38.280Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/why-one-in-five-planted-trees-die-before-they-can-help-britain-reach-net-zero-and-how-rhizoco
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/dfb90460-6ffe-45c8-a173-0170b1178a5a.webp
categories: Green Tech
content_type: Spotlight
region: Edinburgh
publication: Sovereign Magazine
---

The UK government has committed [£400 million for tree planting](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmenvfru/356/report.html) between 2024 and 2026, targeting 30,000 hectares annually by 2025 to help reach net zero by 2050. Current planting rates are less than half the target, and standard survival rates of around 78% mean 22% of planted trees die within their first years.

An Edinburgh biotech company is addressing this bottleneck with a precision approach to reforestation. [Rhizocore Technologies](https://www.rhizocore.com/), based at the UK Agri-Tech Centre’s Northern Innovation Hub in Roslin, has achieved 97% survival rates in trials with Forestry and Land Scotland compared to 78% for untreated trees. The difference lies underground, in the fungal networks that most tree planting programmes ignore.

When you are already behind on targets, losing over a fifth of your investment to tree mortality compounds the problem. Parliamentary committees have warned it is ‘extremely unlikely’ the UK will meet its 2025 deadline, with only two planting seasons remaining when the assessment was made. Wasted public money and delayed climate action accumulate when every year counts.

## The Scale of Britain’s Tree Planting Shortfall

The UK needs to increase tree cover from 13% to between 17% and 19% of land area by 2050, according to [Climate Change Committee recommendations](https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-how-will-tree-planting-help-the-uk-meet-its-climate-goals/). If targets are met, new woodlands could sequester between 14 and 20 million tonnes of CO2 annually, a substantial contribution to [net zero ambitions](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/from-clay-pits-to-ev-batteries-cornwall-proves-uk-can-make-battery-grade-lithium-now-the-hard).

Analysis shows the UK has [fallen short of tree planting targets](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-misses-tree-planting-targets-by-forest-the-size-of-birmingham/) since 2020, missing an area nearly the size of Birmingham. Government carbon budget plans foresee continued low afforestation rates out to 2035, suggesting systemic issues beyond simple funding constraints.

The problem is compounded by survival rates that are rarely discussed in policy circles. Recent UK woodland studies reveal sapling mortality rates have increased from 16.2% annually before 2000 to 30.8% in 2022, driven by environmental stresses including drought and heat. Five-year survival chances have declined from 41.3% to just 15.8% in some natural regeneration contexts. When commercial forestry achieves 78% survival with improved techniques, it represents progress, but still means nearly a quarter of investment fails to deliver returns.

## What Actually Kills Young Trees

Poor nutrient and water absorption limit growth and resilience in young trees, particularly on challenging terrains including former agricultural land, moorlands and reclaimed mining sites where natural soil biology has been degraded or destroyed.

Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi form symbiotic networks with tree roots, functioning as an extension of the root system itself. The fungi colonise tree roots, forming a mantle and a specialised interface for nutrient exchange. Their fungal hyphae extend into the soil, dramatically increasing the root’s absorptive surface area. They directly mobilise, absorb and transport nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as water, to host trees.

ECM fungi produce enzymes that liberate nutrients from organic matter, breaking down complex compounds that tree roots cannot access alone. They improve the chances of roots encountering fertile microsites in soils where nutrient patches are transient and unevenly distributed. In degraded or disturbed soils where natural fungal networks have been destroyed by agriculture or development, restoring these belowground biological systems makes nutrients available that fertiliser alone cannot provide.

## The Edinburgh Solution: Matching Fungi to Sites

Rhizocore Technologies was founded by Dr Toby Parkes, a plant scientist with a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Bath and former researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he worked on the Millennium Seed Bank Project. The company spun out from the University of Edinburgh and Deep Science Ventures’ Food & Agriculture Science Transformer programme in 2021.

Their approach differs from generic mycorrhizal inoculants, which have shown mixed results in forestry applications. Many forest soils already contain mycorrhizal populations, and commercial products often suffer from inconsistent spore viability, insufficient root colonisation and contamination issues. Research has shown that inoculating seedlings at outplanting frequently does not result in significant growth benefits compared to non-inoculated seedlings when natural fungal communities are present.

Rhizocore’s RhizoPellets deliver locally adapted fungi selected from one of the world’s largest living fungal libraries, matched to specific site conditions. ‘We deliver a localised and tailored product to each customer, to their trees and site conditions, which is enabled by our massive and ever-growing strain library’, said Jack Hooper, chief operating officer at Rhizocore.

The precision matters because different tree species, soil types and environmental conditions require different fungal partners. What works on a clear-felled forest in the Scottish Highlands may not work on reclaimed mining land in Wales or former agricultural pasture in England. The company now operates across more than 100 active field sites, from heather moorlands to high-altitude locations.

## The Validation Data: Field Trials Show 25% Improvement

Forestry and Land Scotland trials at their Damside site confirmed the 97% survival rate for treated trees compared to 78% for untreated saplings, a relative 25% improvement. ‘It is really encouraging to see that early trials in our collaboration with Rhizocore Technologies have yielded increased survival rates on a test plot at our Damside site’, said Gareth Waters, head of forest management support at Forestry and Land Scotland. The organisation now plans to expand the use of the pellets across multiple sites during the next planting season.

At a site owned by Trees for Life, one of the UK’s leading native woodland restoration charities, Downy Birch saplings grew 13 times faster than control and fertilised trees after 12 months. The growth differential suggests the fungi enable trees to access nutrients more efficiently over time.

With operations across more than 100 active field sites and 2025/26 capacity already 100% sold out before production scaling, commercial validation is substantial. Dr Toby Parkes noted that ‘our results clearly show that planting success can be increased by tapping into the belowground fertilisation superpowers of fungi’.

## The Business Case for Soil Biology

Rhizocore has secured £4.5 million in investment to scale its approach to forestry and woodland restoration. The funding round was led by The First Thirty, a specialist investor in technologies to improve soil health, with participation from Scottish Enterprise and existing customer The Grosvenor Estate, one of the UK’s largest landowners.

Additional investors include Sand River, Generation-Re, Kibo Invest, John Thomson and Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund. The Grosvenor Estate’s involvement as both customer and investor is particularly telling. The estate’s land holdings include the 39,880-hectare Reay Forest Estate in Sutherland, which recently completed comprehensive [natural capital baselining](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/rewilding-that-pays-how-tswalu-turned-wildlife-grazing-into-verified-soil-carbon-credits) across its rural estates.

‘Their technology demonstrates that enhancing soil biology is not only an ecological benefit, but also a powerful driver of financial returns’, said Antony Yousefian, general partner at The First Thirty. ‘By making land assets more resilient and productive, Rhizocore is creating the economic incentive that will pull billions in new capital towards large-scale restoration.’

Davy Portway, head of venture investment at Grosvenor, explained the estate’s perspective: ‘By taking a localised approach to enhancing and restoring our natural assets, we aim to improve the resilience of our land. We are particularly excited to assess the impact on belowground biomass amongst the trees we have planted along with RhizoPellets.’

## Scaling Production and North American Expansion

The investment will fund a tenfold increase in production capacity at Rhizocore’s facility in Roslin, with headcount increasing by 50%. The company is also planning expansion into North America, where 1.4 billion trees are planted annually, representing a substantially larger market than the UK.

‘With this investment we will increase production at the UK Agri-Tech Centre’s Northern Innovation Hub by at least ten times and increase the headcount by 50%, as well as setting up operations in the US’, said Hooper. The company’s laboratories are within the University of Edinburgh, whilst operational business runs from the Northern Innovation Hub, housing offices and all production facilities.

The localised approach to natural asset restoration that Grosvenor highlighted extends to belowground biomass assessment, a metric that is rarely measured in traditional forestry but could become increasingly important as [carbon accounting methods become more sophisticated](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/carbon-capture-agriculture-market-signals-shift-to-biologically-based-solutions). Trees store carbon not just in trunks and branches but in root systems and associated fungal networks.

## From Planting Numbers to Survival Rates

Current approaches to reforestation have focused on planting numbers rather than survival rates and biological restoration. Government targets are expressed in hectares planted, not hectares successfully established or carbon sequestered over time.

Contractors are paid to plant trees, not to ensure they survive. Monitoring is often limited to the first year or two, missing longer-term mortality. The focus on meeting annual planting targets obscures the reality that many of those trees will not contribute to net zero goals.

With UK tree planting targets already in jeopardy and current rates less than half what is needed, improving survival rates from 78% to 97% could mean the difference between meeting or missing net zero commitments. If you plant 15,000 hectares at 78% survival, you get 11,700 hectares of established woodland. At 97% survival, the same planting effort yields 14,550 hectares, a 24% improvement in outcomes for the same initial investment.

Rhizocore’s approach, matching specific fungal strains to site conditions using an extensive strain library, contrasts with one-size-fits-all solutions that have characterised much reforestation effort. The early data suggests that what happens underground may determine whether Britain’s tree planting targets contribute to net zero or simply waste public money on saplings that never reach maturity. As [biotech start-ups that might actually scale](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/from-science-to-sea-how-hatch-blue-picks-start-ups-that-might-actually-scale) become increasingly important, Rhizocore’s field-proven approach offers a template for evidence-based environmental solutions.