20 Jahre Modellbetrieb für Ökolandbau in Müncheberg. Teil 2: Wie ertragslabil sind Körnerleguminosen im Vergleich zu Getreide und Mais?

Auf dem Modellbetrieb für Ökolandbau in Müncheberg wurden von 1993 bis 2013 Feldversuche zur Ermittlung der Ertragsstabilität von zwei Körnerleguminosen (Schmalblättrige Lupine und Futtererbse), Wintergetreide (Roggen und Weizen), Hafer und Silomais durchgeführt. Zwei orthogonale Datensätze wurden genutzt um die temporären Ertragsschwankungen der Einzelkulturen zu vergleichen. Beide Körnerleguminosen zeigten die geringste Ertragsstabilität von allen untersuchten Kulturen. Dies war sowohl für varianzbasierte als auch für regressionsbasierte Stabilitätsparameter der Fall. Gründe für die geringe Ertragsstabilität sind unzureichend bekannt. Es müssen Strategien für das Management entwickelt werden, um mit den großen Schwankungen umzugehen

Das Prinzip der Gesundheit als Leitmotiv des Handelns in der betrieblichen Praxis

We aim to create an international network of farmers and scientists to jointly develop new and interdisciplinary approaches to health measurement and research in ecological agriculture. First, to establish common ground, we identified personal principles and strategies of best practice that make organic farmers successful in running healthy farm systems. Building on this practice experience and findings from a former research project (Vieweger & Döring, 2015), we aim to produce a set of transferable strategies to increase the direct translation of organic principles into practice and improve the understanding of health concepts in practice. For the identification of example farmers in three countries (Austria, Germany, UK), we used an online survey, asking farmers to describe how they understand health concepts on their farm and what methods they use to improve it. The results have contributed to a pre-selection of possible best practice farmers, which were followed by interviews with local experts (e.g. advisors, certifiers) who have long-standing knowledge of the suggested farmers and their systems. Here we describe outcomes of this identification process

Inspiring Farmers For Healthy Farming

"The health and nutritional value of agricultural food products is strongly linked to, and inherently dependent on the production process and farm system. However, there are currently only limited options for transferring and measuring farm-health principles at farm level (Vieweger and Döring, 2015). In our previous work we have shown how organic farmers have developed their own strategies and philosophies for running healthy farming systems and increase the health of soils, plants, animals and humans. Such tacit farmer knowledge and awareness of a holistic systems-approach to health in food production can contribute crucial information and practical understanding for food system sustainability. The current project builds on these earlier findings, using participatory multi-actor approaches to collaborate with the established international network. The farmer groups in Germany, Austria and the UK aimed to 1) conceptualize health criteria on farms, such as ‘Is a nutrient or humus balance calculated?‘, ‘How much time is spent for observation and reflection?’, ‘Are regionally adapted breeds and varieties used?’; and 2) develop a concept for farmer-to-farmer learning, defining most appropriate conditions and methodologies for the multiplication of this knowledge. With a co-learning approach, we aim to allow a flexible integration of farmer knowledge and experience, thereby inspiring farmers to reflect on the potential ways they can improve health in their system, and further develop their individual methods over time; this approach also aims to help research identify general drivers of farm health.

Grain legume yields are as stable as other spring crops in long-term experiments across northern Europe

Grain legumes produce high-quality protein for food and feed, and potentially contribute to sustainable cropping systems, but they are grown on only 1.5% of European arable land. Low temporal yield stability is one of the reasons held responsible for the low proportion of grain legumes, without sufficient quantitative evidence. The objective of this study was to compare the yield stability of grain legumes with other crop species in a northern European context and accounting for the effects of scale in the analysis and the data. To avoid aggregation biases in the yield data, we used data from long-term field experiments. The experiments included grain legumes (lupin, field pea, and faba bean), other broad-leaved crops, spring, and winter cereals. Experiments were conducted in the UK, Sweden, and Germany. To compare yield stability between grain legumes and other crops, we used a scale-adjusted yield stability indicator that accounts for the yield differences between crops following Taylor's Power Law. Here, we show that temporal yield instability of grain legumes (30%) was higher than that of autumn-sown cereals (19%), but lower than that of other spring-sown broad-leaved crops (35%), and only slightly greater than spring-sown cereals (27%). With the scale-adjusted yield stability indicator, we estimated 21% higher yield stability for grain legumes compared to a standard stability measure. These novel findings demonstrate that grain legume yields are as reliable as those of other spring-sown crops in major production systems of northern Europe, which could influence the current negative perception on grain legume cultivation. Initiatives are still needed to improve the crops agronomy to provide higher and more stable yields in future.Peer reviewe

Grain legume production and use in European agricultural systems

ISBN(print) 978-0-12-812419-2; Editor DL SparksThere is a great demand for high-protein materials for livestock feed in Europe and European agriculture has a deficit of about 70% high-protein materials of which 87% is met by imported soybean and soy meal. This reflects the fact that grain legumes are currently under represented in European agriculture and produced on only 1.5% of the arable land in Europe compared with 14.5%on aworldwide basis. Several grain legumes have the potential to replace at least some of the soya currently used in the diets of monogastric animals, ruminants, and fish. There are also opportunities for greater use of legumes in new foods. Here we review the contribution of ecosystem services by grain legumes in European agriculture startingwith provisioningservices in termsof food and feed and moving on to the contribution theymake to both regulating and supporting serviceswhich are in part due to the diversity which these crops bring to cropping systems. We explore the need to understand grain legume production on the time scale of a rotation rather than a cropping season in order to value and manage the agronomic challenges of weed, pests, and diseases alongside themaintenance or improvement of soil structure, soil organic matter, and nutrient cycling. A review of policy interventions to support grain legumes reveals that until very recently these have failed to make a difference in Europe. We contrast the European picture with the interventions that have allowed the development of grain legume production in both Canada and Australia. Whether farmers choose to grow more legumes will depend on market opportunities, the development of supply chains, and policy support aswell as technicalimprovementsof grainlegumeproductionsuchas breeding of new varieties and management development to improve yield stability. However, to really increase the production of grain legumes in Europe, the issues are far more wide reaching than agronomy or subsidy and require a fundamental rethinking of value chains to move grain legumes from being niche products to mainstream commodities.Peer reviewe

Decreased heat stability and increased chaperone requirement of modified human βB1-crystallins

Purpose: To determine how deamidation and partial loss of the N- and C-terminal extensions alter the heat stability of βB1-crystallin. Methods: Human lens βB1, a deamidated βB1, Q204E, and αA-crystallins were expressed. Truncated βB1 was generated by proteolytic removal of part of its terminal extensions. The aggregation and precipitation of these proteins due to heating was monitored by circular dichroism and light scattering. The effect of heat on the stability of both monomers and oligomers was investigated. The flexibility of the extensions in wild type and deamidated βB1 was assessed by 1H NMR spectroscopy. Results: With heat, deamidated βB1 precipitated more readily than wild type βB1. Similar effects were obtained for either monomers or oligomers. Flexibility of the N-terminal extension in deamidated βB1 was significantly reduced compared to the wild type protein. Truncation of the extensions further increased the rate of heat-induced precipitation of deamidated βB1. The presence of the molecular chaperone, αA-crystallin, prevented precipitation of modified βB1s. More αA was needed to chaperone the truncated and deamidated βB1 than deamidated βB1 or truncated βB1. Conclusions: Deamidation and truncation of βB1 led to destabilization of the protein and decreased stability to heat. Decreased stability of lens crystallins may contribute to their insolubilization and cataract formation