Record drought in Switzerland- RELOAD project featured on Einstein program

The Einstein science program (06 December 2018) recently highlighted how the extreme drought in Switzerland this past summer effected agricultural production. The program featured the Farming Systems and Tillage Experiment (FAST) field plots from Agroscope in Rümlang, ZH. In this trial, researchers have compared the performance of four common farming systems since 2009. The trial has hosted numerous projects, e.g. the WFSC Research Programs project NORGS in the past and currently the RELOAD project. In the RELOAD project, summer drought can be simulated with portable roofs, and the effects of drought on plant yield, nutrient uptake and grain quality in four Swiss production systems will be tested.

For the Einstein viewers, FAST trial manager and RELOAD team member Raphaël Wittwer demonstrated how he uses a drone to collect vegetation data (video at 1:40), and Einstein’s Monika Schärer helped with the harvest of maize in FAST II (video at 14:14). Results show that this year, the maize harvest in Rümlang was reduced by about 10% compared to 2017 and that the drought imposed in the RELOAD project reduced the harvest by an additional 30% (video: 27:15). As longer dry spells are likely to become more common in the future, adaptation measures are required to secure good harvests for food and feed. Raphaël Wittwer explains that we need to be innovative and use adaptation measures like adapted varieties or methods preserving the soil, so that it can retain more water.

Watch the entire Einstein program (in German) external pageherecall_made