European survey shows poor association between soil organic matter and crop yields
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
European survey shows poor association between soil organic matter and crop yields Wytse J. Vonk . Martin K. van Ittersum . Pytrik Reidsma . Laura Zavattaro . Luca Bechini . Gema Guzma´n . Annette Pronk . Heide Spiegel . Horst H. Steinmann . Greet Ruysschaert . Renske Hijbeek
Received: 26 March 2020 / Accepted: 20 October 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract A number of policies proposed to increase soil organic matter (SOM) content in agricultural land as a carbon sink and to enhance soil fertility. Relations between SOM content and crop yields however remain uncertain. In a recent farm survey across six European countries, farmers reported both their crop yields and their SOM content. For four widely grown crops (wheat, grain maize, sugar beet and potato), correlations were explored between reported crop yields and SOM content (N = 1264). To explain observed Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-020-10098-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. W. J. Vonk (&) M. K. van Ittersum P. Reidsma R. Hijbeek Plant Production Systems, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] L. Zavattaro Department of Agricultural Forest and Food Sciences, Universita` Degli Studi Di Torino, Turin, Italy L. Bechini Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Universita` Degli Studi Di Milano, Milan, Italy G. Guzma´n Institute for Sustainable Agriculture-CSIC, Cordoba, Spain
variability, climate, soil texture, slope, tillage intensity, fertilisation and irrigation were added as covariables in a linear regression model. No consistent correlations were observed for any of the crop types. For wheat, a significant positive correlation (p \ 0.05) was observed between SOM and crop yields in the Continental climate, with yields being on average 263 ± 4 (95% CI) kg ha-1 higher on soils with one percentage point more SOM. In the Atlantic climate, a significant negative correlation was observed for wheat, with yields being on average 75 ± 2 (95%CI) kg ha-1 lower on soils with one percentage point more SOM (p \ 0.05). For sugar beet, a significant positive correlation (p \ 0.05) between A. Pronk Agrosystems Research, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands H. Spiegel Institute for Sustainable Plant Production, Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Vienna, Austria H. H. Steinmann Centre for Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use, GeorgAugust-Universita¨t Go¨ttingen, Go¨ttingen, Germany G. Ruysschaert Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Research (ILVO), Merelbeke, Belgium
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Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst
SOM and crop yields was suggested for all climate zones, but this depended on a number of relatively low yield observations. For potatoes and maize, no significant correlations were observed between SOM content and crop yields. These findings indicate the need for a divers
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