Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2023
Authors
Franziska Mohr Vasco Diogo Julian Helfenstein Niels Debonne Thymios Dimopoulos Wenche Dramstad Maria García-Martín Józef Hernik Felix Herzog Thanasis Kizos Angela Lausch Livia Lehmann Christian Levers Robert Pazur Virginia Ruiz-Aragón Rebecca Swart Claudine Thenail Hege Ulfeng Peter H. Verburg Tim Williams Anita Zarina Matthias BürgiAbstract
Farming in Europe has been the scene of several important socio-economic and environmental developments and crises throughout the last century. Therefore, an understanding of the historical driving forces of farm change helps identifying potentials for navigating future pathways of agricultural development. However, long-term driving forces have so far been studied, e.g. in anecdotal local case studies or in systematic literature reviews, which often lack context dependency. In this study, we bridged local and continental scales by conducting 123 oral history interviews (OHIs) with elderly farmers across 13 study sites in 10 European countries. We applied a driving forces framework to systematically analyse the OHIs. We find that the most prevalent driving forces were the introduction of new technologies, developments in agricultural markets that pushed farmers for farm size enlargement and technological optimisation, agricultural policies, but also cultural aspects such as cooperation and intergenerational arrangements. However, we find considerable heterogeneity in the specific influence of individual driving forces across the study sites, implying that generic assumptions about the dynamics and impacts of European agricultural change drivers hold limited explanatory power on the local scale. Our results suggest that site-specific factors and their historical development will need to be considered when addressing the future of agriculture in Europe in a scientific or policy context.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Cover crops are used to increase carbon sequestration in soils. However, an increase of organic matter in soils not only increases carbon stocks but also affects nitrogen availability. This can trigger N2O emissions, particularly during wintertime, when standing plant biomass from cover crops decays. N2O emissions associated with cover crops could potentially cancel out the carbon gain. In this study, N2O emissions were measured over two years in a field experiment in SE Norway with barley and various cover crops (perennial and Italian ryegrass, oilseed radish, summer and winter vetch, phacelia and a mixture of different herbs) and compared with controls without cover crops. Manual chambers were used in summer during the growth of the main crop, while winter emissions were measured more frequently by a field robot to capture freeze-thaw induced emission peaks. Both winters had poor snow cover and the highest N2O emissions were measured during freeze-thaw cycles in early spring. Nitrogen-rich cover crops with poor overwintering (oilseed radish) increased wintertime emissions, whereas perennial cover crops with good overwintering (perennial ryegrass and herb mixture) tended to reduce N2O emissions compared to controls. This suggests that the overall climate effect of cover crops in hemiboreal cereal production depends on cover crop species and winter conditions.
Abstract
We tested whether windthrow damage to Nordic conifer forest stands could be reliably detected as canopy height decrease between a pre-storm LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) digital surface model (DSM) and a photogrammetric DSM derived from a post-storm WorldView-3 stereo pair. The post-storm ground reference data consisted of field and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) observations of windthrow combined with no-damage areas collected by visual interpretation of the available very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery. We trained and tested a thresholding model using canopy height change as the sole predictor. We undertook a two-step accuracy assessment by (1) running k-fold cross-validation on the ground reference dataset and examining the effect of the potential imperfections in the ground reference data, and (2) conducting rigorous accuracy assessment of the classified map of the study area using an extended set of VHR imagery. The thresholding model produced accurate windthrow maps in dense, productive forest stands with a sensitivity of 96%, specificity of 71%, and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) over 0.7. However, in sparse and high elevation stands, the classification accuracy was poor. Despite certain collection challenges during the winter months in the Nordic region, we consider VHR stereo satellite imagery to be a viable source of forest canopy height information and sufficiently accurate to map windthrow disturbance in forest stands of high to moderate density.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
There is an increased interest in the hydroponic production of strawberries in protected cultivation systems, and it is, therefore, urgent to develop new, more sustainable growing media alternatives. This study investigated the physical properties of wood fiber produced from Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.) and peat:wood fiber substrate blends as well as the performance of the wood fiber in comparison to the industry standards, i.e., peat and coconut coir in the cultivation of hydroponic strawberry. Tray plants of the June-bearing strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) cultivar ‘Malling Centenary’ were transplanted into five different growing media: a peat (80%) and perlite (20%) mixture, stand-alone (100%) coconut coir and three stand-alone (100%) Norway spruce wood fiber substrates (including coarse textured fibers with compact and loose packing density and compacted fine-textured fibers). Ripe strawberries were harvested and registered throughout the production season. The overall marketable yield was comparable across all the tested growing media; however, after 4 weeks of harvest, both coarse wood fiber and fine wood fiber showed better fruiting performance than the peat-perlite mixture. A trend for earlier berry maturation was observed for all wood fiber-based substrates. Plant parameters recorded after the end of production showed that plant height, number of leaves, and biomass production were higher in coarse wood fiber than in the peat-perlite mixture. Moreover, plants grown in wood fiber-based substrates had less unripe berries and flowers not harvested in comparison to both the peat and coir treatments.
Authors
Siv Mari Aurdal Tomasz Leszek Woznicki Trond Haraldsen Krzysztof Kusnierek Anita Sønsteby Siv Fagertun RembergAbstract
Cultivation of strawberries in greenhouses and polytunnels is increasing, and new sustainable growing media are needed to replace peat and coconut coir. This study investigated the effect of wood fiber and compost as growing media on hydroponically cultivated strawberries. Two experiments were conducted, where the everbearing cultivar ‘Murano’ was grown in mixtures of wood fiber and compost (Experiment 1) and the seasonal flowering cultivar ‘Malling Centenary’ was grown in mixtures of wood fiber and peat (Experiment 2). Additionally, in Experiment 2, the effect of adding start fertilizer was assessed. The yield potential of ‘Murano’ plants was maintained in all substrates compared to the coconut coir control. However, a mixture of 75% wood fiber and 25% compost produced the highest yield, suggesting that mixtures of nutritious materials with wood fiber may improve plant performance. The chemical composition of the berries was not affected by the substrate composition; however, berries from plants grown in the best performing blend had a lower firmness than those grown in coconut coir. ‘Malling Centenary’ plants produced higher yields in substrates enriched with start fertilizer. Generally, the productivity of ‘Malling Centenary’ plants was maintained in blends containing up to 75% of wood fiber mixture even without start fertilizer.
Authors
Jian LiuAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Divina Gracia P. RodriguezAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Divina Gracia P. RodriguezAbstract
No abstract has been registered