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%) ev

SUBMITTER: Doring TF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8209060 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature