Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields

Abstract Current use of mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizers is unsustainable because of its high fossil energy requirements and a considerable enrichment of the biosphere with reactive N. Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) from leguminous crops is the most important renewable primary N source, especial...

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Autores principales:	Thomas F. Döring, Daniel Neuhoff
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/574bdc609dd346dbbc323322c1d67e23
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:574bdc609dd346dbbc323322c1d67e232021-12-02T17:23:49ZUpper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields10.1038/s41598-021-91940-72045-2322https://doaj.org/article/574bdc609dd346dbbc323322c1d67e232021-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91940-7https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Current use of mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizers is unsustainable because of its high fossil energy requirements and a considerable enrichment of the biosphere with reactive N. Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) from leguminous crops is the most important renewable primary N source, especially in organic farming. However, it remains unclear to which degree BNF can sustainably replace mineral N, overcome the organic to conventional (O:C) yield gap and contribute to food security. Using an agronomic modelling approach, we show that in high-yielding areas farming systems exclusively based on BNF are unlikely to sustainably reach yield levels of mineral-N based systems. For a high reference wheat yield (7.5 t ha−1) and a realistic proportion of fodder legumes in the rotation (33%) even optimistic levels of BNF (282 kg N ha−1), resulted in an O:C ratio far below parity (0.62). Various constraints limit the agricultural use of BNF, such as arable land available for legumes and highly variable performance under on-farm conditions. Reducing the O:C yield gap through legumes will require BNF performance to be increased and N losses to be minimised, yet our results show that limits to the productivity of legume-based farming systems will still remain inevitable.Thomas F. DöringDaniel NeuhoffNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Thomas F. Döring Daniel Neuhoff Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields
description	Abstract Current use of mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizers is unsustainable because of its high fossil energy requirements and a considerable enrichment of the biosphere with reactive N. Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) from leguminous crops is the most important renewable primary N source, especially in organic farming. However, it remains unclear to which degree BNF can sustainably replace mineral N, overcome the organic to conventional (O:C) yield gap and contribute to food security. Using an agronomic modelling approach, we show that in high-yielding areas farming systems exclusively based on BNF are unlikely to sustainably reach yield levels of mineral-N based systems. For a high reference wheat yield (7.5 t ha−1) and a realistic proportion of fodder legumes in the rotation (33%) even optimistic levels of BNF (282 kg N ha−1), resulted in an O:C ratio far below parity (0.62). Various constraints limit the agricultural use of BNF, such as arable land available for legumes and highly variable performance under on-farm conditions. Reducing the O:C yield gap through legumes will require BNF performance to be increased and N losses to be minimised, yet our results show that limits to the productivity of legume-based farming systems will still remain inevitable.
format	article
author	Thomas F. Döring Daniel Neuhoff
author_facet	Thomas F. Döring Daniel Neuhoff
author_sort	Thomas F. Döring
title	Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields
title_short	Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields
title_full	Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields
title_fullStr	Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields
title_full_unstemmed	Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields
title_sort	upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/574bdc609dd346dbbc323322c1d67e23
work_keys_str_mv	AT thomasfdoring upperlimitstosustainableorganicwheatyields AT danielneuhoff upperlimitstosustainableorganicwheatyields
_version_	1718380969320251392

Upper limits to sustainable organic wheat yields

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