Speaker
Description
Introduction
The Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science (SITES) is a network of nine field research stations across different habitats and climate zones of Sweden (www.fieldsites.se). Lönnstorp field research station at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Alnarp, southern Sweden, is one of two agricultural stations within SITES. Situated in an intensively farmed landscape, this station hosts a unique agricultural research infrastructure: the SITES Agroecological Field Experiment (SAFE), which is available for a wide range of research. The aim of this presentation is to describe SAFE and inspire scientists and stakeholders to consider using this infrastructure.
Materials, methods
SAFE started in 2016, comprising four distinct cropping systems that are replicated in four blocks. It is located at Lönnstorp (Latitude 55.66917, Longitude 13.1027) on land that has been managed conventionally and used for agricultural field experiments since the late 1960s. The soil is described as a sandy loam soil (Barreiro & Albertsson 2022).
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The reference system – conventional crop production
The reference system contains four common crops in conventional arable crop production in southern Sweden, in the following crop rotation: spring barley, winter oilseed rape, winter wheat, sugar beet. A grass-legume mixture is grown as a cover crop after winter wheat. In each block, all crops are present every year, in four separate plots each measuring 50 x 24 m. The crops are managed with pesticides to control weeds, pests and diseases, and with synthetic fertilizers for optimum yields according to best practices in conventional agriculture in the region. -
The organic system
This system is based on an eight-year rotation with the following crops: lupin-spring barley intercrop, winter rye, grass-legume ley, sugar beet, pea-spring wheat intercrop, winter oilseed rape, winter wheat, and grass-legume ley. The grass-legume consists of ryegrass, timothy, tall fescue, lucerne, red clover and white clover, and is included twice in the rotation. The system comprises 4 plots per block, which means that each crop is present once every two years, plot size same as in the reference system. The crops are managed according to standards of organic agriculture, with mechanical weed control and applying organic fertilizers to the crops that do not contain any legume. -
The Agroforestry system – Agroecological intensification
In this system, each block consists of eight 50 x 12 m plots that are separated from each other along their long side by rows (50 x 2 m) of either apple trees (4 rows) or a hedge comprised of a diverse mixture of shrubs and trees (3 rows). In the plots between the apple -or hedgerows, the same crops as in the organic system are grown, and in the same sequence and management, but with the same crop in all plots in a given year. -
The perennial system
This system is based on a prototype perennial cereal crop – intermediate wheatgrass, also known under its traded name Kernza®. Each block consists of two 50 m x 48 m plots, one with Kernza® sole crop and the other with a Kernza®-lucerne intercrop. The crops are managed with organic practices and harvested once per year. The perennial system is being re-established after termination of all plots in 2023 and sowing a new Kernza® variety as sole and intercrop in the same plots in autumn 2024.
A more detailed description of the four systems is provided in Barreiro & Albertsson (2022).
Results and Discussion
Yield data from all crop harvests in all four systems are recorded each year, and made openly available in the SITES data portal. Several studies have made use of the experiment so far (e.g. Audu et al. 2022; Dimitrova Mårtensson et al. 2022; Huddell et al. 2023). The presentation will show the yield observations made so far, and outline possibilities to use the experiment for different types of research.
References
Audu, V. et al. 2022. Appl. Soil Ecol. 174, 104414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2022.104414.
Barreiro, A., Albertsson, J. (2022). SITES Agroecological Field Experiment (SAFE) - Description. Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science (SITES). https://hdl.handle.net/11676.1/_Eu76kOwEaReq39cluHGHGdG
Dimitrova Mårtensson, LM. et al. 2022. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 42, 21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00752-0.
Huddell, A. et al. 2023. Science of The Total Environment 857, 159255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159255.
| Keywords | Agroforestry, Intercropping, Intermediate wheatgrass, Replicated blocks, Yield data |
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