Institut für Pflanzenbau und Bodenkunde
The aim of the project is to evaluate the climate protection potential of perennial cereal cropping systems. For this purpose, a comparison of different perennial and annual cereal cultivation systems and the evaluation of their advantages and disadvantages will be carried out. Marginal yield sites are considered, on which already today (and even more so in the future due to climate change) cultivation of annual cereals and other annual crops is not profitable. In addition to yield and quality determinations, the extent to which perennial cereal cropping systems can contribute to climate protection will be investigated by determining the carbon storage potential. By identifying potential cultivation areas, the results will be scaled up to the national level. With its diverse functions, the soil microbiome makes a decisive contribution to soil fertility and thus also to carbon storage. Therefore, comparative studies between the two cultivation systems will be carried out in this project. The project will also investigate synergistic effects of mixed cultivation with various legumes. These include the nitrogen supply of both mixing partners, phytosanitary aspects, biodiversity and the flowering range. With a view to the improvements in nitrogen efficiency that will be necessary in the future, especially in cereal crops, the impact of perennial cropping on nitrogen dynamics and nitrate leaching will be examined in comparison to classically narrow wheat or winter cereal crop rotations. However, perennial crops can also have some disadvantages compared to annual cropping systems, which result directly from the longer, multi-year standing times of the crops without potentially annual crop sequences. For example, increasing pathogen pressure over the years due to the accumulation of pathogens at the site can limit the yield potential of such a system. Since there is hardly any information on this for perennial cereal cropping systems so far, initial surveys are also being carried out on this. *** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***
Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture
