Replacing organic with mineral N fertilization does not reduce nitrate leaching in double crop forage systems under Mediterranean conditions

Composts Produced From Pig Slurry Solids: Nutrient Efficiency and N-Leaching Risks in Amended Soils

“…Losses of N during the experiment could have occurred by leaching or denitrification (Hoffman and Van Cleemput, 2004;Burgos et al, 2006;Demuras et al, 2016). For leaching to occur, N must be in a water-soluble, mobile form, and the rainfall must be abundant enough to transport N through the soil.…”

“…Burgos et al (2006) pointed out that N losses by leaching tend to be higher when poorly stabilized organic materials rich in N are applied, but also stated that NO3 − losses by leaching from compost-amended soils are usually very low. Demuras et al (2016) concluded from a field experiment that the replacement of organic with mineral N-fertilization systems was not effective at mitigating NO3 − leaching, although the residual N remained in the soil for further mineralization. In fact, they did not find any reduction in N leaching during winter, when mineral fertilizer was used instead of organic N.…”

Assessing Nitrogen Use Efficiency and Nitrogen Loss in a Forage-Based System Using a Modeling Approach

“…The NUE index value for the whole crop rotation indicates that, yearly, the above-ground biomass crop absorbed only 49% of the total amount of N, originating from A (atmospheric deposition), F (mineral and organic fertilizers), R (plant root additions). Likewise, Bassanino et al [34] and Demurtas et al [31] obtained NUE values ranging between 47% and 50% in similar climatic and agronomic conditions with cattle livestock. In particular, for the considered cropping system, the Italian ryegrass had a much lower efficiency than silage corn in converting N input into crop N biomass.…”

“…To date, the relationships between soil NO 3´a ccumulation and groundwater NO 3ć oncentrations in agricultural soils are still not entirely understood [1]. Over the last decade, numerical models linked to N cycling in soil water and plants have received increasing attention as useful tools to predict the risk of NO 3 -N contamination in surface and groundwater and to define environmentally and economically suitable agricultural systems [27][28][29][30][31]. Models, when properly validated, provide a fast and cost-effective way of estimating NO 3 -N leaching under different agricultural management practices.…”

Re-Staging La Rasgioni: Lessons Learned from Transforming a Traditional Form of Conflict Resolution to Engage Stakeholders in Agricultural Water Governance

“…A participatory action research process started in 2008 [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] and involved interdisciplinary teams composed of agronomists, economists, animal scientists, meteorologists, and social scientists. This research pathway was able to consolidate a long-term trust relationship between researchers and local stakeholders [38][39][40][41][42] and revealed asymmetries between the effective cooperation among livestock farmers and the fragmentation of competences and actions among the public institutional actors in the same catchment. Moreover, following the implementation of the Nitrate Directive, the initial tension between farmers and fishermen came to also include policy-makers in different positions in the governance system.…”