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Accumulation of biologically fixed nitrogen by legumes cultivated as cover crops in Switzerland

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Abstract

Aims

Biological nitrogen fixation by legumes is expected to play a greater role in future cropping systems. Our study evaluated 19 legume species grown as cover crops in Swiss agroecosystems.

Methods

Two field experiments were set up to monitor the biomass production and nitrogen content of 19 legumes and two non-legumes. The proportion of nitrogen derived from atmospheric N2 (%Ndfa) was assessed using the 15N natural abundance method. In parallel, a pot experiment was set up to determine the species-specific B values necessary to apply this method.

Results

Some species produced an important amount of biomass in 3 months, up to 6.86 t/ha for Vicia faba. Five species, Lathyrus sativus, Pisum sativum, Vicia sativa, Vicia villosa, and V. faba, acquired more than 100 kg/ha of N through biological fixation. Important amounts of nitrogen were also derived from the soil. %Ndfa values showed high variability between and within species, ranging from 0 % to almost 100 %.

Conclusions

Some legumes showed high N accumulation even in a short growing period, and could play an important role in fixing renewable nitrogen in crop rotation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Astrid Oberson for her valuable comments, the BSc students from Zollikofen (B value experiment), and all the people who helped in the field and lab work. We also thank Annika Ackermann from the Grassland Sciences group (Prof. Nina Buchmann) at ETH Zurich for stable isotope ratio analyses. The authors are also grateful to Drs. Larry Siwajek and Bernard Jeangros for their respective contributions on the manuscript. This study was partly funded by the Federal Office for Agriculture and by the Swiss National Science Foundation in the framework of the National Research Program NRP 68 “Sustainable Use of Soil as a Resource,” grant 406840-143063.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agroscope, Institute for Plant Production Sciences, Route de Duillier 50, CP 1012, 1260, Nyon 1, Switzerland

    Lucie Büchi, Sokrat Sinaj & Raphaël Charles

  2. School of Agricultural, Forest and Food sciences HAFL, 3052, Zollikofen, Switzerland

    Claude-Alain Gebhard & Hans Ramseier

  3. ETH Zurich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Universitätsstrasse 2, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Frank Liebisch

Authors
  1. Lucie Büchi
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  2. Claude-Alain Gebhard
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  3. Frank Liebisch
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  4. Sokrat Sinaj
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  5. Hans Ramseier
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  6. Raphaël Charles
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Correspondence to Raphaël Charles.

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Responsible Editor: Martin Weih.

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Büchi, L., Gebhard, CA., Liebisch, F. et al. Accumulation of biologically fixed nitrogen by legumes cultivated as cover crops in Switzerland. Plant Soil 393, 163–175 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2476-7

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