Effect of Balanced and Integrated Crop Nutrition on Sustainable Crop Production in a Classical Long-Term Trial

Abstract

The classical long-term trial at Hanninghof was established in 1958 on loamy sand soil in Duelmen, Germany to study the long-term effects of different nutrient management strategies. The impact of balanced mineral fertilizer application and integrating farmyard manure (FYM) with mineral fertilizer on indicators of sustainable crop production are evaluated in comparison to unbalanced nutrition. Crop rotation since 1958 was potato, followed by winter rye and oat. After 2008, the rotation was silage maize, winter rye, and potato to adjust the trial to current farm practice, but the treatments remained the same: a control plot without fertilizer; FYM alone; and mineral P + K, N, N + P, N + K, N + P + K, and N + P + K + Mg fertilizers with and without FYM. The effect of each treatment on crop yield, revenue, sustainable yield index, water and nutrient use efficiencies, soil nutrient and carbon contents, and soil pH are presented. Evaluation of the 62 years data shows that unbalanced nutrition caused by omitting nutrients and application of only FYM as organic nutrition reduced crop yield and revenue, led to inefficient use of resources and nutrients, and a depletion of soil fertility with negative implications on sustainability. Application of mineral fertilizer N + P + K + Mg as the balanced nutrition and supplementing FYM with mineral fertilizer as the integrated nutrition had social, economic and environmental benefits indicating sustainable crop production.