"In Bad Homburg, Germany, scientists are researching which crop rotation can be used to increase yields. In the long term, Hessian farmers should also benefit from this. Minister Priska Hinz will be taking a look at this on her summer tour.
Gas has recently been measured in the soybean field. In the future, once a week scientists will determine how much methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide is produced in the field when fertilizer is applied in a certain way. Namely not with animal manure, but with the mulch of clover grass. The measuring device is in a field near Bad Homburg im Taunus, in the district of Ober-Erlenbach. In 2015, the state of Hesse took over the ten-hectare site surrounding it as an organic farming trial field with a domain lease agreement. Environment and Agriculture Minister Priska Hinz (The Greens) was there on Monday for an hour and a half to visit.
The scientists and practitioners of the Hessian state agricultural enterprise test and research on the fields how the fertility of the soil can be increased in livestock-free organic farming - and thus the yield. According to Andreas Hammelehle, the head of the test field, the aim and hypothesis is that this can work sustainably with a certain crop rotation. A chart shows clover-alfalfa grass the first year, cabbage the second, and soy the third. That's where the field with the measuring devices has now arrived, before it continues in the coming months and years with things like winter wheat, oil pumpkin and new potatoes.
Adaptable to climate change
The hope of the project is to gain knowledge for organic farming, but also for conventional cultivation. The overarching goal, which the minister repeated on Monday, is to increase the organic farming area in Hesse to a quarter by 2025. The long-term trial is intended to show "farmers interested in conversion" how nutrient-rich cereals and vegetables can grow in the favorable locations in southern Hesse with good soil and without animal fertilizers. On the field in the Vordertaunus, it is also about how the economic methods can be adapted to climate change, especially to dry, hot summers and the fact that precipitation almost only falls in the other seasons - but then a lot of rain comes from the sky at once .
Since 2015, the state has invested a total of 2.5 million euros in the project.
The state company works together with the University of Kassel, on whose Frankenhausen domain the gas detector is also regularly installed. The clover grass does not always remain as mulch when the next fruit follows. In Ober-Erlenbach it is also about the transfer from donor to recipient areas.
The minister took two requests with her from her visit to Bad Homburg as she set out to continue her summer tour to other Hessian locations. The employees of the test field would like a multifunctional hall so that devices no longer have to be driven from miles away from scattered locations and they can be cleaned on the spot. And they would like the project to be consolidated as a long-term experiment - and appear in the next coalition agreement." [1]
1. Fruchtbarer Boden ohne Tierdung. Florentine Fritzen.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online)Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Sep 2, 2023.