Unknown

Dataset Information

0

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, 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.

SUBMITTER: Doring TF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8209060 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

Similar Datasets

| S-EPMC8740327 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5456737 | biostudies-other
| S-EPMC4460489 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4882743 | biostudies-other
| S-EPMC6140313 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC3248430 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC9245658 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC8567145 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7481575 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7453923 | biostudies-literature