About the Project:
Project Aim
This project aims, to explore how and to which degree we can manage the subsoil to secure or even increase plant yields by improving the overall nutrient and water use efficiency for crops. We presume that nutrient and water uptake from the subsoil can be elevated at given or even increased crop yields when there are attractive options for the plants to invest into subsoil roots, like low physical resistance for the root channels, hot spots of higher microbially facilitated nutrient supply in the subsoil as well as plant available subsoil water under conditions of seasonal drought stress in the surface soil.
Motivation
With a growing global population, arable food production in 2050 should be 60 percent higher than that of 2005/ 2007 (FAO, 2012). Therefore, there is the need for “sustainable intensification” of production, which is a great challenge in front of the background of the current situation of agricultural production. However, immense water, carbon, and nutrient reservoirs can be found in subsoils. In order to secure the yield potential of soils and to increase their productivity in the long-term, it is inevitable that subsoils are integrated in sustainable management strategies.
Expected Results
Aim of soil3 is to provide scientific knowledge for practitioners. The coupling of strategies of research and production, services, arable management strategies, and providing of software tools are main bricks. Indicator systems of the acquisition of water and nutrients from the subsoil are applicable for monitoring success. Different technical means and manipulation options of the subsoil are tools for economic utilization. Identifying of genotypes could be coupled with commercial plant breeding industry.
News
- New Soil³ publication: The impact of subsoil management on the delivery of ecosystem services: An economic valuation for Germany
- In dialogue with practitioners at the DLG Field Days
- New Soil³ publication: Expansion and evaluation of two coupled root–shoot models in simulating CO2 and H2O fluxes and growth of maize
- BonaRes/Rhizo4Bio Status Seminar on 14/15 March 2022
- New publication Soil³: Soil phosphorus cycling is modified by carbon and nitrogen fertilization in a long‐term field experiment
Publications
- Short-term effects of subsoil management by strip-wise loosening and incorporation of organic material
- Root-derived carbon stocks in formerly deep-ploughed soils – A biomarker-based approach
- Fifty years after deep‐ploughing: effects on yield, roots, nutrient stocks and soil structure
- Short-term impacts of different intercropping times of maize and ruzigrass on soil physical properties in subtropical Brazil
- Fast agricultural topsoil re-formation after complete topsoil loss – Evidence from a unique historical field experiment