Understanding benefits and trade-offs in agriculture
The Center announces two new projects starting in 2024 focused on understanding how different crop rotation practices affect water and nitrogen balances as well as production. Both projects are funded by the Improving Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems across Key Environmental Metrics Research Program.
The Improving Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems across Key Environmental Metrics Research Program focuses on improving sustainability of agricultural and food systems across key environmental metrics. The goal is to understand the benefits and trade-offs of various measures in agricultural systems and production practices while maintaining the production potential and strengthening overall resilience of the agricultural system towards climate impacts and biodiversity.
After a successful first call for proposals, two new projects start in 2024. The program is supported by Bayer AG, with a donation to the ETH Foundation. Key components of the program are the collaboration and knowledge-sharing between research and practice as well as interdisciplinary, solution-oriented research approaches for major crops grown in Europe.
New project highlights
Assessing the effect on water resources and greenhouse gas emissions of fallow vs cover crop in an intensive crop rotation system under the Mediterranean climate
Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr. Sandra Pool, Subsurface Environmental Processes Group, Eawag and ETH Zurich
Principal Investigators: Dr. Joaquin Jimenez-Martinez, Subsurface Environmental Processes Group, Eawag and ETH Zurich; Prof. Félix Francés and Prof. Marta García-Mollá, Polytechnic University of Valencia
Intensive agriculture with crop rotation is usually practiced in temperate climates, such as the Mediterranean region, where droughts and high-intensity rainfall events are expected to become more prevalent because of climate change. This new interdisciplinary project aims to advance the understanding of how different crop rotation practices affect water and nitrogen balances, to quantify N2O emissions of different practices, and to estimate economic feasibilities. Work will be done through a bottom-up approach (that engages farmers, policy makers, and water authorities) and considering climate change scenarios.
The project will focus on the Campo de Cartagena area of southeast Spain, where recent change in regulations now allow two rotations instead of the traditional three and fertilizer dosage restrictions.
“Assessing a short fallow period versus a cover crop in intensive agriculture with crop rotation is important to protect water resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This project will help to the need for further optimizing agriculture in temperate climates such as the Mediterranean region.”Dr. Joaquin Jimenez-Martinez, Principal Investigator
Increasing sustainability and nitrogen use efficiency by improving peas for crop rotation
Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr. Beat Keller, Crop Science, ETH Zurich
Principal Investigators: Prof. Achim Walter, Crop Science, ETH Zurich; Dr. Astrid Oberson, Plant Nutrition, ETH Zurich
Plant-based protein production is currently proposed as a key way to decrease the environmental footprint of agriculture and to improve human nutrition, especially in Europe. However, with an increased demand for plant-based products, new grain legume varieties are required with high protein content and quality.
This new project aims to identifying efficient pea varieties with high photosynthetic efficiency, nitrogen fixation potential, and protein production. The work will employ state of the art phenotyping technology for the screening of photosynthetic efficiency in the field, and the technology’s potential for the detection of highly productive pea breeding lines and varieties will be evaluated. Instead of optimization of fertilizer use, the researchers propose a different approach to increase nitrogen use efficiency at the farm level by introducing legumes into crop rotation or improving existing varieties in crop rotation.
“Legumes produce protein-rich seeds in a sustainable symbiosis: Photosynthates are fed to bacteria which in turn fix nitrogen from the air. I will use a field robot to identify protein-rich pea breeding lines by screening their photosynthetic efficiency.”Dr. Beat Keller, Postdoctoral Researcher
