Abstract
AbstractAgricultural intensification within forage systems has reduced grassland floral diversity by promoting ryegrass (Lolium spp.), damaging soil functionality which underpins critical ecosystem services. Diverse forage mixtures may enhance environmental benefits of pastures by decreasing nutrient leaching, increasing soil carbon storage, and with legume inclusion, reduce nitrogen fertilizer input. This UK study reports on how species-rich forage mixtures affect soil carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen at dry, medium and wet soil moisture sites, compared to ryegrass monoculture. Increasing forage mixture diversity (from 1 to 17 species) affected soil carbon at the dry site. No effect of forage mixture on soil phosphorus was found, while forage mixture and site did interact to affect soil nitrate/nitrite availability. Results suggest that forage mixtures could be used to improve soil function, but longer-term studies are needed to conclusively demonstrate environmental and production benefits of high-diversity forages.
Highlights
The main function of agricultural soils is to support food production, but they provide many other ecosystem services (Milne et al, 2015)
Agricultural intensification has led to the dominance of ryegrass (Lolium spp.), which is considered the most profitable species in these systems (Hopkins & Wilkins, 2006)
Diverse forage mixtures may alleviate some issues as they contain species with varying phenology, root depth, and biomass when compared to lower diversity grassland mixtures (Skinner & Dell, 2016)
Summary
The main function of agricultural soils is to support food production, but they provide many other ecosystem services (Milne et al, 2015). Agricultural intensification has led to the dominance of ryegrass (Lolium spp.), which is considered the most profitable species in these systems (Hopkins & Wilkins, 2006). This simplification, comes at a cost of the reduction of many ecosystems functions (Cong et al, 2014). Along with increasing human population and related demand for food, producers will face climate change, with increased probability of extreme weather events such as droughts or flooding (Hopkins & Del Prado, 2007) Given their extent, forage systems must be able to maintain productivity, but should contribute to climate change mitigation and soil sustainability. We hypothesized that forage mixture and prevailing soil moisture conditions interact to affect (H1) soil carbon content, (H2) nitrate/nitrite availability, (H3) soil ammonium content, and (H4) plant availability of soil phosphorus
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