Characteristics of spring barley varieties for organic farming. Nutrient acquisition and crop performance

Summary

It appears that the growth of barley seedlings during spring is restricted by moderate internal deficiency of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in most cases. This agrees with the well-known increases of growth and grain yields if P and K fertilizer placement is used in spring barley growing.
It is also evident from our earlier work that barley cultivars may differ in the P acquisition from soil (Gahoonia and Nielsen, 2004; Gahoonia and Nielsen, 2003). The existence of cereal varieties differing in the efficiency in P uptake from soil suggests that more nutrient efficient varieties can be identified among the existing varieties.
The aim of this work was to study differences between selected barley cultivars in their soil-P and soil-K acquisition to find indication of moderate P and K deficiency in spring barley seedling grown under organic farming conditions at various soil fertility levels.