The Rengen Grassland Experiment: Effect of Soil Chemical Properties on Biomass Production, Plant Species Composition and Species Richness

Hejcman, Michal; Češková, Michaela; Schellberg, J.; Pätzold, Stefan

doi:10.1007/s12224-010-9062-9

Cited by 70 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Treatment abbreviations (A -F) are given in Table 1. Numbers above triangles indicate pH (CaCl 2 ) in a 0-10 cm soil layer in each treatment published by Schellberg et al (1999) and biomass production for all treatments in 2005 published by Hejcman et al (2010a). In the current study, biomass production used for the calculation of nutrient uptake was sufficiently steady to provide a reliable basis for nutrient budget estimation in the RGE.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: relationship between soil and biomass chemical properties, amount of elements applied, and their uptake

et al. 2010

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The Rengen Grassland Experiment (RGE) was established in the Eifel Mountains (Germany) on a low productive Nardetum in 1941. Since then, the following fertilizer treatments have been applied with a late two-cut system: unfertilized control, Ca, CaN, CaNP, CaNPKCl and CaNPK 2 SO 4 . We aimed to understand how concentrations of macro (N, P, K, Ca and Mg), micro (Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn) and trace (As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb) elements in the plant biomass were affected by long-term fertilizer application, soil chemical properties and biomass production. In 2008, biomass samples from the first cut (early July) and the second cut (mid-October) were collected and analyzed. The simultaneous application of N, P and K decreased nitrogen concentration in the aboveground biomass, but substantially increased biomass production. Late cutting management decreased forage quality in highly productive more than in low productive plant communities. The concentrations of P and K in the plant biomass were positively related to P and K application and, therefore, to plant available P and K concentrations in the soil. The concentrations of some micro (Fe, Mn and Zn) and trace (As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb) elements in the plant biomass were negatively correlated with the amount of elements supplied by fertilizers and biomass production, probably because of the dilution effect. Long-term fertilizer application resulted in the accumulation of macro (P, Ca and Mg), micro (Fe and Mn) and trace (As and Cr) elements in the soil, but in many cases this accumulation was not connected with an increase in the concentrations of these elements in the plant biomass. Nutritional status, as indicated by the biomass N:P ratio, was consistent with N or P limitation as indicated by the nitrogen and phosphorus nutrition indices. Furthermore, additional K (co-) limitation was indicated by the N:K and K:P ratios in the biomass from the NP treatment. The results from the RGE indicate that there is no simple positive relationship between the applied elements and their concentrations in the plant biomass.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: relationship between soil and biomass chemical properties, amount of elements applied, and their uptake

et al. 2010

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“…The plots in this experiment are representative of grassland fields on farms under different management intensities and stand for fields of a similar type spread all across European grassland areas. Treating the plots with different types of fertilizer resulted in significant differences in plant and soil nutrient content (for more details, see [22]). …”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Constant fertilization lead to a characteristic plant species composition in each plot, which differed between treatments and changed only marginally between years [23]. Similarly, biomass production varied between the plots; the lowest biomass was produced in the Ca treatment, followed by CaN, CaNP and the NPK treatments [21,22] (cf. Supplement Table S7).…”

Section: Critical Reflection On the Experimental Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinguishing Intensity Levels of Grassland Fertilization Using Vegetation Indices

Hollberg

Schellberg

2017

Remote Sensing

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Abstract:Monitoring the reaction of grassland canopies on fertilizer application is of major importance to enable a well-adjusted management supporting a sustainable production of the grass crop. Up to date, grassland managers estimate the nutrient status and growth dynamics of grasslands by costly and time-consuming field surveys, which only provide low temporal and spatial data density. Grassland mapping using remotely-sensed Vegetation Indices (VIs) has the potential to contribute to solving these problems. In this study, we explored the potential of VIs for distinguishing five differently-fertilized grassland communities. Therefore, we collected spectral signatures of these communities in a long-term fertilization experiment (since 1941) in Germany throughout the growing seasons 2012-2014. Fifteen VIs were calculated and their seasonal developments investigated. Welch tests revealed that the accuracy of VIs for distinguishing these grassland communities varies throughout the growing season. Thus, the selection of the most promising single VI for grassland mapping was dependent on the date of the spectra acquisition. A random forests classification using all calculated VIs reduced variations in classification accuracy within the growing season and provided a higher overall precision of classification. Thus, we recommend a careful selection of VIs for grassland mapping or the utilization of temporally-stable methods, i.e., including a set of VIs in the random forests algorithm.

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“…Chemical and physical soil properties influence biomass production, species richness and species composition (Critchley et al, 2002). Most importantly, productivity is strongly affected by the rates at which limiting nutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) are supplied (Hejcman et al, 2010), while species richness is known to decline with increasing soil nutrient availability (Hejcman et al, 2010;Janssens et al, 1998). In effect, increasing nutrient availability in grasslands favours a few competitive species which have the capacity to rapidly capture resources and accumulate biomass (Critchley et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Grazing on Plant Diversityproductivity Relationship in Semi-Arid Grassland of South Africa

Dingaan¹,

Walker²,

Tsubo³

et al. 2016

Appl Ecol Env Res

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Abstract.The relationship between plant diversity and productivity has been hotly debated over the last two decades. What makes the relationship complex is, in part, the interplay of several biotic and abiotic effects, which include rainfall variability, soil characteristics and grazing. We investigated the influence of grazing intensity on the diversity-productivity relationship in a wide range of soil pH along a rainfall gradient in semi-arid grassland. Vegetation and soil surveys were conducted in high grazing (HG) and low grazing (LG) grasslands around Bethlehem (716 mm mean annual rainfall, moderately acidic soil), Bloemfontein (543 mm, slightly acidic/neutral soil) and Kimberley (467 mm, neutral/slightly alkaline soil) in South Africa. Plant species occurring in the study area were recorded, and aboveground biomass was estimated by clippings. Soils sampled were analysed for chemical properties. Species richness increased with increasing biomass and decreasing pH in Kimberley and Bloemfontein and subsequently declined with increasing biomass and decreasing pH in Bethlehem. The relationship between species richness and biomass was hump-shaped across the study area but when we differentiated between the degrees of grazing, we found linear positive relationships at both LG and HG sites. This suggests that the diversity-productivity relationship needs to be carefully examined in grazing land.

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The Rengen Grassland Experiment: Effect of Soil Chemical Properties on Biomass Production, Plant Species Composition and Species Richness

Cited by 70 publications

References 46 publications

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: relationship between soil and biomass chemical properties, amount of elements applied, and their uptake

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: relationship between soil and biomass chemical properties, amount of elements applied, and their uptake

Distinguishing Intensity Levels of Grassland Fertilization Using Vegetation Indices

Influence of Grazing on Plant Diversityproductivity Relationship in Semi-Arid Grassland of South Africa

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