Plant your pants! Duke of Westminster’s charity urges people to bury their underwear

The Country Trust has launched a campaign to build a picture of soil health across the country

The Country Trust has been calling for volunteers around the UK to bury a pair of cotton pants for a few months to test soil quality (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

People have been urged to bury their underwear as part of a campaign to build a picture of soil health across the country.

The Duke of Westminster is President of the Country Trust, which has been calling for volunteers around the UK to bury a pair of cotton pants for a few months to test soil quality.

The experiment involves putting an item made of 100 per cent cotton, like cotton underwear, into a hole in the soil, then covering it up and leaving it for three months.

The Duke of Westminster, who is President of the Country Trust, with his fiancée Olivia Henson (PA)

When the piece is dug up, it will have degraded at varying rates, with more degradation equalling healthier soil. This is because the decay suggests the presence of organisms - which include fungi, bacteria, algae, protozoa, anthropods, nematodes, and worms - that break down the material and thrive when the soil has enough water, oxygen, minerals and organic matter.

The soil health campaign was launched on World Soil Day in December and advises volunteers to “Plant your pants!”

Participants are asked to share their results online. The charity then adds the findings to its interactive soil map.

The hope is that a picture of soil health across the UK will be built, with the charity saying it aims to run the campaign annually.

On its website, it added, “Over time, we hope to build a nationwide understanding of the vital importance of soil, and the role each of us can play in making our soil healthy.”

As President of Country Trust, Hugh Grosvenor takes a keen interest in the environment. He studied countryside management at Newcastle University and controls many of the communal garden squares in the City of Westminster.

As a part of a family with a global property empire, he is also one of the wealthiest people in the country, owning over 300 acres of central London’s prime real estate.