Modeling crop yield response to nitrogen inputs in different crop rotations using data from long-term experiments

Abstract

Productive and resource-efficient crop production systems are essential to build sustainable food systems. Specific crops and well-designed diverse crop rotations can provide several benefits, including improved food system sustainability. Crop growth models that capture these benefits require detailed and rarely available input data, making them impossible to implement in quantitative research at the scale of national or subnational food systems. Instead, we need simple yet robust cropping system models accounting for the rotated crops that require limited input data and can be employed in food system models. Here, we present a proof-of-concept solution to this challenge. Using data from long-term field experiments in Sweden and Poland, we establish robust relationships between the input of nitrogen and output of crude protein, ruminant metabolizable energy, and harvested dry matter across whole crop rotations with and without leys. These three output metrics capture key aspects of productivity from a food-system perspective. To demonstrate potential applications in food system modeling or life cycle assessment, we calculate carbon and land footprints of outputs. Compared with rotations without leys, crop rotations with leys had higher outputs of crude protein and dry matter, at least at high nitrogen inputs. Productivity of ruminant metabolizable energy did not differ when including leys. This approach provides a promising avenue for further research at the intersection of crop system and food system science, exploiting the wealth of information collected in long-term field experiments thus far.

Keywords

crop rotation; productivity; yield; nitrogen

Published in

Mistra Food Futures Report
2025, number: 30
Publisher: SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

SLU Authors

• Einarsson, Rasmus

  • Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Costa, Alessio

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Bommarco, Riccardo

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• MacLaren, Chloe

  • Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Vico, Giulia

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science

Publication identifier

• ISBN: 978-91-8124-000-9
• eISBN: 978-91-8124-001-6

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141983