Highly productive forage legume stands show no positive biodiversity effect on yield and N2-fixation

Abstract

While N-2-fixation in diversified grasslands including forage legumes and non-legumes has been widely studied, N-2-fixation in swards containing only forage legumes remains unclear. In this study, we investigated N-2-fixation in pure stands and mixtures of three forage legumes.N-2-fixation, dry matter (DM) and nitrogen (N) yields were quantified in a field experiment for red clover (Trifolium pratense L.), white clover (Trifolium repens L.) and lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) pure stands and mixtures using the isotope dilution method.All three forage legume species derived most (around 85%) of their N from atmospheric N-2-fixation (%Ndfa). However, no positive effect of species diversity was found in any of the mixtures. Species composition of the forage legume mixtures affected the amount of N from N-2-fixation by affecting DM production and N accumulation of the species, where the seasonal amount of N-2-fixation ranged from 370 to 500 kg N ha(-1); which was highest in the presence of red clover.We found that mixtures of the three forage legumes were highly productive, but did not show positive advantages compared to the red clover pure stands in terms of DM, N yield and %Ndfa.

Keywords

Grassland; Forage legume mixture; Percentage of N derived from atmosphere (%Ndfa); N yield

Published in

Plant and Soil
2017, Volume: 417, number: 1-2, pages: 169-182

SLU Authors

• Carlsson, Georg

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

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Agricultural Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-017-3249-2

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/86446