UK’s first measurements of nitrogen added by legumes to a crop production system The potential of grain legume crops such as fava beans to harness the nitrogen present in air into biologically useful forms is well known, but how much of an opportunity does it present for farmers wanting to pursue net-zero agriculture? A research team from the James Hutton Institute has recorded the first UK-wide measurement of nitrogen added by fava beans. The study focused on a range of production systems, including the use of long-term crop-rotational data from the Institute’s Centre for Sustainable Cropping. The team found that beans can incorporate more than 400 kg of nitrogen per hectare due to the symbiosis between legume crops and soil bacteria, which allows them to harness naturally occurring atmospheric nitrogen and negate the need for added synthetic nitrogen fertilisers. The crops also provide nitrogen to the production system after harvest and the residual stems, roots, and pods decay into the soil as a natural fertiliser, and general soil improver. Professor Euan James, a research leader at the Institute’s Ecological Sciences department and co-author of the study, said: “These results are a first for Scotland and the UK and demonstrate that in addition to their value as a highprotein crop, beans can be used to help reduce costly and environmentally damaging fertiliser nitrogen inputs into arable systems. “This demonstrates the huge potential grain legumes such as fava bean could provide in achieving zero-carbon agriculture, as well as meeting Scotland’s ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.” Dr Pete Iannetta added: “We are fortunate to have the incredible long-term whole-system datasets of the Centre for Sustainable Cropping, which is managed by Dr Cathy Hawes. There is nothing like it globally for agroecological studies of arable cropping. “This, allied to a fantastic team of collaborators from across the UK, including farmers – has allowed us to achieve a strong foundation for future environmental impact assessments.” The James Hutton Institute’s Centre for Sustainable Cropping (CSC) was established in 2009 to design an integrated cropping system for multiple benefits and test the long-term impacts on biodiversity and whole-system sustainability. By enhancing soil quality and reducing dependence on fertiliser inputs, researchers at the CSC are looking at how to minimise pollution and losses through run-off, leaching, erosion and greenhouse gas emissions. For more information on the CSC, including a virtual tour, visit: csc.hutton.ac.uk. Paper: Maluk, M., Ferrando-Molina, F., Lopez del Egido, L. et al. Fields with no recent legume cultivation have sufficient nitrogen-fixing rhizobia for crops of faba bean (Vicia faba L.). Plant Soil (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-021-05246-8. Policymakers urged to adopt new approaches to addressing global crises The publication, titled “Ten Facts about Land Systems for Sustainability”, was co-written by 50 leading land use scientists from 20 countries. A companion report offers specific examples to help policymakers and the public understand what’s at stake at this critical moment in global development. The ten facts outlined in the study speak to the relationship people have with the land itself on a physical level as well the social, economic, cultural, environmental, and spiritual implications of how land use decisions are made and by whom. These facts are: • Meanings and values of land are socially constructed and contested. Different groups place different values on what makes land useful, degraded, or culturally important. Topdown policy agendas are often rooted in one dominant value system. • Land systems exhibit complex behaviors with abrupt, hard-to-predict changes. Policy interventions are typically intended to solve a particular problem, but often fail when they ignore system complexity. Addressing one problem in isolation can result in unintended harm to natural areas and people. • Irreversible changes and path dependence are common features of land systems. Converting land from one use to another, such as the clearing of old-growth forests, leads to changes felt decades to centuries later. Restoration rarely brings land back to a state that truly matches original conditions. • Some land uses have a small footprint but very large impacts. Cities, for instance, consume large amounts of resources that are often produced elsewhere using vast amounts of land; they can also reduce negative impacts by concentrating human populations on a relatively small land footprint. Net impacts can be hard to measure and predict. • Drivers and impacts of land-use change are globally interconnected and spill over to distant locations. Due to globalization, land use can be influenced by distant people, economic forces, policies, or organizations, and decisions. • We live on a used planet where all land provides benefits to societies. People directly inhabit, use, or manage over three-quarters of Earth’s ice-free land, with more than 25% inhabited and used by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC). Even uninhabited lands are connected with people in different ways; no change in land use anywhere is free of trade-offs. • Land-use change usually entails trade-offs between different benefits —”win–wins” are rare. While land use delivers a range of benefits, such as food, timber, and sacred spaces, it also often involves trade-offs for both nature and some communities of people. Land use decisions involve value judgments to determine which benefits to prioritize, and for whom. • Land tenure and land-use claims are often unclear, overlapping, and contested. Rights to use and access land can overlap, belong to different people, or to different kinds of access as in rights to ownership or use. • The benefits and burdens from land are unequally distributed. A small number of people own a disproportionate amount of land area and land value in most countries around the world. • Land users have multiple, sometimes conflicting, ideas of what social and environmental justice entails. There is no single form of justice that is fair for all. Justice means different things to and for different people, from recognizing the claim of indigenous groups to land, to impacts on future generations, to what systems are used to determine whose claims are given priority. These facts shape the effectiveness and social and environmental impacts of policies and decisions involving land, from climate change mitigation and adaptation to food availability, to biodiversity and human health. For more details, read the full press release by the Global Land Programme or access the report on the PNAS website. Paper: Patrick Meyfroidt et al. Ten facts about land systems for sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 2022, 119 (7) e2109217118; DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.2109217118. A report, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) and co-authored by Professor Richard Aspinall, an Honorary Fellow of the James Hutton Institute, calls for action from policymakers to develop sustainable and equitable solutions to urgent global challenges. 24 Hutton Highlights Scots scientists to spearhead urgent EU research into how climate change is impacting our ability to grow crops A Scottish scientist is to co-lead an elite project group of 22 European partners, looking to create resilient crops for the future. Yield is projected to plummet by a third due to extremes in temperatures and greater variation in rainfall patterns impacting on soil and the type of crops which can be grown. Dr Tim George, a Rhizophere Scientist at the James Hutton Institute, based at the Invergowrie site near Dundee, is joined on the five-year, €9 millionproject– called ‘Root2Res’ - by top soil scientists from the University of Dundee and 20 other organisations from across the European Union (EU) and Africa. The project, led scientifically by the Institute and France’s ARVALIS, an agricultural research organisation dedicated to arable crops, is funded by the EU’s flagship research program, Horizon Europe. It will look to address the climate resilience of soil in combatting rising temperatures and greater variability in rainfall which in turn place stress on crops. Work will also include research into improving soil nutrient availability and cutting the greenhouse gases being emitted from soil. The group, which meets for the first-time next month, will work with crop breeders and farmers from areas in Europe who are under the greatest pressure from climate change induced stress. Investigations will focus on a range of cereal, tuber, beans and peas commonly grown in rotations in Europe. Dr Tim George, lead scientist on the Root2Res programme said: “There is both a soil and crop crisis developing in Europe. In 20 years’ time, we will need to have more resilient crops which can tolerate extreme temperatures, more variable rainfall and be able to grow in more marginal soil conditions. Managing the interface between the soil and the plant is where the real battle against climate change is going to play out. I am delighted to be selected to play a major role in such a vital and urgent project which is a real coup for the Institute.” December 2022 25 Comments?
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