Abstract
It has been frequently suggested that varieties bred/selected under conventional farming conditions lack important traits required for optimum performance under low agrochemical input conditions. However, there is limited scientific information about interactions between cultivars bred/selected for the low input vs conventional farming sector and innovative crop agronomic strategies on crop health, yield and quality parameters to support this hypothesis. The main objective of this pilot study was therefore to compare the effect of contrasting fertilisation and crop protection regimes used in organic and conventional farming on crop health and performance parameter in two wheat varieties developed for organic/low input and conventional farming systems respectively.Results indicate that both leaf phenolic and flavonoid compounds, were positively associated with use of the ‘long straw’ variety Aszita and to a lesser extent composted FYM fertiliser inputs, while they were negatively associated with mineral N-fertiliser inputs, plant N uptake and use of the ‘short straw’ variety Solstice. On the other hand foliar and ear disease severity were positively associated with plant N uptake, use of the variety Solstice and the use of mineral fertilisers, while they were negatively associated with composted FYM fertiliser inputs, leaf phenolic/flavonoid concentrations and the use of the variety Aszita.Overall findings suggest that low input farming-focused breeding programmes might deliver varieties such as Aszita that have lower yield potential, but have higher grain protein, leaf phenolic concentrations, and foliar disease resistance under low-input conditions. Future studies should investigate whether the higher foliar phenolic levels found in low input varieties are linked to disease resistance and if they are also expressed in the grain.
Highlights
The demand for organic food has increased rapidly over the last 25 years in many developed countries in Europe, North America, and Asia/ Oceania (Willer and Kilcher, 2011)
The experiment has a split-split-split plot factorial design with (1) fertility type, (2) fertility level, (3) crop protection and (4) variety choice sub-sub-sub-plot; 1.5 × 24 m) as factors and 4 replicate blocks. This design allows the experiment to be analysed as a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment with fertility type, fertility level (170 and 85 kg total N ha−1), crop protection, and variety choice (Aszita: long straw variety bred for organic systems; Solstice: typical short straw variety bred for conventional systems) as factors
There were significant main effects of crop protection for total phenolic acid concentrations and year for flavonoid concentrations
Summary
The demand for organic food has increased rapidly over the last 25 years in many developed countries in Europe, North America, and Asia/ Oceania (Willer and Kilcher, 2011). Organic farming standards, which are defined by government laws and regulations in most countries (EC, 2017; USDA, 2017; Willer and Kilcher, 2016, 2017), prohibit or restrict the use of many external inputs that are widely used in conventional farming, primarily because they are non-renewable, scarce (e.g. mineral P, K and micronutrient fertilisers) and/or energy intensive to produce (e.g. mineral N fertilisers) and are potentially deleterious to the environment and human health (e.g. mineral N and P fertilisers, synthetic chemical pesticides, antibiotics, food additives). Organic crop production standards prohibit the use of synthetic chemical crop protection products (fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, plant growth regulators) and the main mineral fertilisers (all sources of N, KCl and superphosphate) that are used widely in conventional farming systems (Baker et al, 2002; EC, 2017; USDA, 2017). Organic and conventional crop production protocols differ substantially in the type and quantities of fertilisers applied, crop protection methods, and increasingly in the types of varieties used (Bilsborrow et al, 2013; Lehesranta et al, 2007)
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