Ertrag von Mais und Sojabohnen im biologischen und konventionellen Anbausystem des DOK-Versuchs

Summary

Sustainable food and feed production is becoming a major issue with regard to the growing world’s population and the scarcity of non-renewable resources such as energy and fertilizers. Long-term trials offer the unique opportunity to assess the performance of cropping systems over decades, providing meaningful data. While many studies have proven, that organic farming generally increases soil fertility and biodiversity, long-term productivity of organic systems is questioned. Here we show that across all crops of a seven year rotation, yields of the organic system were approx. 81% of those of the conventional system in the fifth rotation period of the DOK trial (2006-2012), but with much lower input of nutrients and pesticides. Two major food and feed staple crops, maize and soybean, manifested a different picture. While soybean yields were slightly higher (5%) under organic management, yields of maize were 9% lower in the organic system. These data suggest that long-term productivity of organic systems is possible, while maintaining other ecological services.