Species identity, rather than species mixtures, drives cover crop effects on nutrient partitioning in unfertilized agric
- PDF / 477,562 Bytes
- 14 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 101 Downloads / 209 Views
REGULAR ARTICLE
Species identity, rather than species mixtures, drives cover crop effects on nutrient partitioning in unfertilized agricultural soil Lucas Freund & Pierre Mariotte & Mathieu Santonja & Alexandre Buttler & Bernard Jeangros
Received: 26 May 2020 / Accepted: 25 November 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Aims Previous cover crop studies mainly focused on the links between plant uptake and soil fertility, and there is a clear knowledge gap regarding the role of microbes in these processes. Our aim was then to better understand the effects of plant mixtures (versus monoculture) and the specific effects of each plant species on nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) partitioning between plant, soil, and more particularly microbial pools. Methods Monocultures and mixtures composed of black oat, field pea and Indian mustard were grown during two months in a greenhouse. The concentrations of carbon (C), N and P were measured in both plant and microbial biomass at final harvest, together with soil available N and P.
Results Overall, our findings highlight stronger selection effect (i.e., presence of key species) rather than complementarity effects (i.e., species mixture) to affect the measured parameters. The presence of pea increased the biomass production of oat and mustard, as well as the nutrient concentration of oat, whereas pea P concentration decreased in presence of oat and mustard N and P concentrations were negatively impacted respectively by the presence of oat and pea. We also observed a strong competition between plants and microbes for both soil N and P. Conclusions The oat-pea and the oat-pea-mustard mixtures represented the best compromise between biomass production, nutrient storage and biomass C:N ratio, thus insuring a good organic matter decomposition and nutrient provision for the following main crop.
Responsible Editor: Hans Lambers. L. Freund : P. Mariotte : M. Santonja : A. Buttler Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), Laboratory of Ecological Systems (ECOS), Station 2, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland L. Freund (*) : P. Mariotte : M. Santonja : A. Buttler Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Site Lausanne, Case postale 96, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] P. Mariotte Agroscope, Grazing systems Group, Route de Duillier 50, 1260 Nyon, Switzerland
M. Santonja Aix Marseille Univ, Avignon Université, CNRS, IRD, IMBE, Marseille, France A. Buttler Laboratoire de Chrono-Environnement, UMR CNRS 6249, UFR des Sciences et Techniques, 16 route de Gray, Université de Franche-Comté, F-25030 Besançon, France B. Jeangros Agroscope, Plant production systems, Route de Duillier 50, 1260 Nyon, Switzerland
Plant Soil
Keywords Agro-ecosystem . Green manure . Nitrogen . Phosphorus . Resource-use complementarity . Species selection . Soil fertility
Introduction Conventional field cropping systems often require high fertilizer inputs to meet yield and economic goals. However, s
Data Loading...
