@inproceedings{DoeringViewegerKlingetal.2021, author = {D{\"o}ring, Thomas Felix and Vieweger, Anja and Kling, Charlotte and Bruckner, August and Stumm, Christoph and Bloch, Ralf}, title = {The three freedoms required by transformative agricultural research}, series = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, booktitle = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, editor = {Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF),}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7680}, pages = {48}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Societies' calls for addressing the urgent problems of climate change, biodiversity loss and other environmental crises are becoming ever louder. Responding to this, and to the growing severity of global threats to agricultural and food systems, national and international research funders are increasingly demanding that funded projects achieve real-world transformation of farming systems towards true sustainability and resilience. This development is not only a new funding opportunity for researchers. Because separating the roles of knowledge generation and knowledge exchange with practice will often fail to achieve the necessary transformation, (at least some) researchers will need to engage in this transdisciplinary process of transformative agricultural research. As a consequence, the roles of these researchers need to shift towards stronger integration in farming practice, and deeper exchange with practitioners, adding a new key role to teaching and research. We argue that meeting the goals of the mission of transformative research in agriculture requires three essential freedoms. First, researchers need to be free to engage in this transformative research. This entails a freed mindset, which enables researchers to leave behind traditional roles, e.g. for true knowledge exchange, co-design of projects, and learning from farmers. In addition, there needs to be a stronger appreciation for transdisciplinary and transformative research in the research community, accompanied by a reduced pressure to perform in other currently dominating assessment categories. Second, farmers need to be free to engage in this process as well. Again, this requires an open mindset, e.g. to engage in, and learn from collaborative research, but also available funds and time to engage in the process. Third, transformative agricultural research needs freedom in the project structure and in administrative rules. This includes the permission to fail and to tolerate errors, so that the people involved in the process are able to learn from mistakes. In addition, this is required so that projects are not set up to avoid risks, and can really be transformative and contain innovative elements. Finally, funders will need to show trust in the parties and to reduce administrative burden. Within this framework we discuss the success factors and limitations of transformative agricultural research using examples from various recent national and international projects.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BrucknerKlingDroscha2021, author = {Bruckner, August and Kling, Charlotte and Droscha, Anne}, title = {Concepts to include farmers as co-researchers - the living lab approach of the project "NutriNet"}, series = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, booktitle = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, editor = {Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF),}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7698}, pages = {49}, year = {2021}, abstract = {A key characteristic of current and future challenges towards a climate-resilient and sustainable agricultural landscape is their complexity, that leads to difficulties in implementation of scientific findings in agricultural practice. The implementation of new strategies in nutrient management on organic farms is such a complex challenge due to regional differences in perception and soil resources as well as individual prerequisites on farms. The project "NutriNet: competence- and co-research network for development of nutrient management in organic farming" meets this challenge by building a living lab according to Dell'Erra \& Landoni (2014) and Rose et al. (2018) and aims i) to derive region-specific nutrient management advice for organic farms from scientific findings in field trials (nutrient management research), ii) to ensure implementation of these advice through group motivation and enable an exchange of expert knowledge in Field Schools (transformative research), iii) as well as to evaluate key methods, roles, competences and resources for an implementation-oriented co-research process (process research). Sixty farmers organized in six regions in Germany build the basis of the "NutriNet" living lab, each accompanied by a regional consultant and a group of scientists on a joint level. All actors are involved in the co-research process to varying degrees depending on the stage of the process and can take on different roles. Process steps are ideation, development of the experimental question and design, trial implementation, data analysis, interpretation of data and implementation and transfer of results. The living lab character is especially addressed in the structure of the co-research process for conducting field trials in the "NutriNet" project as it describes a learning system within the system. The co-research concept allows to take different experimental designs into account, namely field trials with a demonstrative character that provide methodological skills for farmers and pre-test results as well as field trials with spatial and temporal repetitions that meet scientific requirements. In order to reduce the scientific framework conditions to such an extent that, on the one hand, scientifically valid results and, on the other hand, the highest possible feasibility of the experiments by the farmers can be guaranteed, so-called regional and network trials are being tested in NutriNet. The concept is based on taking randomization and spatial repetition into account by repeatedly setting up the trial at several locations. In order to take environmental influences (soil, climate) into account, the possible sites are divided into groups according to site characteristics by using a cluster analysis. By involving not only one but many farmers throughout the whole co-research process and enabling exchange among them in Field-Schools, methodological training and implementation of findings are addressed as a part of the research. After one year of field trials two regional trials with ten and seven farmers were set up as well as one network trial on thirteen farms in four regions. Methodological evaluation of the process led to adjustments in experimental design, data collection and coordination between experts that are implemented in a new series of network trials starting in autumn 2021.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KlingSchroeterVogeletal.2021, author = {Kling, Charlotte and Schr{\"o}ter, Ingmar and Vogel, Sebastian and B{\"o}necke, Eric and R{\"u}hlmann, J{\"o}rg and Gebbers, Robin and L{\"u}ck, Katrin and Schubert, Torsten and Gerlach, Felix and Philipp, Golo and Scheibe, Dirk and Zieger, Karin and Palme, Stefan and Kramer, Eckart}, title = {Optimization of soil pH and crop yield based on a precision liming strategy guided by proximal soil sensing: Results of three on-farm field trails}, series = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, booktitle = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, editor = {Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF),}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7741}, pages = {292}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Soil acidity is a key factor for soil fertility as it simultaneously influences several yield-relevant soil properties and thus the productivity of agricultural soils. Besides natural pedogenetic processes, on agricultural land, soil acidification is amplified by the removal of the harvested biomass as well as by the application of acidifying fertilizers. Therefore, regular lime application on agricultural fields is inevitable to sustain soil quality and productivity. In Germany, the standard method for defining the lime requirement of a soil is the VDLUFA framework of the German Advisory Board for Agricultural Analytics. The VDLUFA method uses look-up tables that define the lime requirement according to soil texture, soil pH (CaCl2) and soil organic matter (SOM) content (LVLF et al., 2008). To determine these lime-relevant parameters, fields should be subdivided into subunits of 3 to 5 ha. Within a subunit, one mixed sample from 15 to 20 samples should form a composite sample for further reference lab analysis. However, a uniform lime requirement determined for subunits of 3 to 5 ha is often in contrast to the real soil variability observed in the field (Kling et al., 2019). In order to reflect the within-field soil variability, a few studies have demonstrated the use of high-resolution proximal soil sensing (PSS) data as tools for variable rate (VR) lime application (B{\"o}necke et al., 2020; P{\"a}tzold et al., 2020). However, there is a lack of studies that evaluate the feasibility and benefit of VR methods in on-farm field trails. Therefore, the aim of this study is to compare the performance of site-specific liming based on PSS to optimize soil pH and crop yield with that of commonly applied standard liming methods in Germany. To determine the effect and practicability of the VRA method, a multi-site-multi-year experiment was conducted between 2017 and 2020 on three sites in Brandenburg, Germany. The trial compared the effects on soil pH and crop yield of three lime management practices: variable-rate liming based on PSS data (VR-PS), uniform liming rate based on the VDLUFA standard method (UR), and no liming (ZR). Soil texture and soil pH were assessed with two mobile sensor platforms: the Geophilus system measuring apparent electrical resistivity (ERa) and Gamma-radiation and the Veris pH Manager (Veris Technologies Inc., Salina, KS, USA). Crop yields were obtained from revenue recordings of combine harvesters. Lime prescription maps were generated with an adapted and stepless VDLUFA algorithm, allowing a continuous CaO recommendation (B{\"o}necke et al., 2020). Based on these maps, management zones were delineated to perform lime spreading with state-of-the-art technique. In this study, we outline the conceptual framework of the VR liming approach and present first results from the on-farm field trials to verify the VR approach for an optimized soil acidity management as well as consider whether the higher economic revenue can compensate for added costs for mapping services and spreading technologies.}, language = {en} }