Winter wheat farming in the future and what’s the matter with soil organic matter?

What is it about?

Researchers ran a realistic experiment of farming in the future in a high-tech facility called “Ecotron”. They grew winter wheat in large blocks of real farmland soil under three different weather scenarios: • Today’s weather (based on 2013) • Future weather around 2068 • Even more extreme future weather around 2085 (hotter, higher CO₂, more sunshine, and changed rainfall patterns). They used two types of soil from real fields: • “Low-OM” soil: normal farm soil that had received the usual amount of organic matter over the years. • “High-OM” soil: soil from a field that had received twice as much organic matter (regenerative-style management). What they found (surprisingly): • In the warmer future climates, wheat grown in the low-organic-matter soil gave higher yields — sometimes much higher — than wheat in the high-organic-matter soil. • The high-OM soil seemed to “lock up” nutrients too much: the richer microbial life and more complex soil food web grabbed nitrogen and other nutrients so the wheat plants couldn’t get enough, especially when it was hot and growth was faster.

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Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Building up soil organic matter is still helpful for the environment in many ways and in regions where soil is exposed to erosion. But under future hotter climates it might hurt wheat yields unless we figure out ways to match the nutrient release from organic matter to meet the nutrient demand from crop plants. We may need smarter ways to add organic matter (timing, type, etc.) so microbes don’t steal all the nutrients from the crop. And we need to be careful with pathogens growing in high organic matter soils. In short (trigger warning): Climate change will mess with the old “more organic matter = always better” rule for wheat farming. Sometimes less is more. We’ll need to fine-tune regenerative practices to have healthy and resilient crops while keeping both yields and sustainability.