The phosphorus dilemma in organically farmed grasslands – are legume presence and phytodiversity incompatible?

Abstract

Organic grassland farmers are caught between the pressure to operate profitably and the need to ensure ecosystem services like nature conservation. Phosphorus (P) management is at the core of this dilemma: grassland legumes, which are vital for nitrogen (N) inputs, forage quantity and quality, have high P requirements. However, rising soil P contents lead to decreased phytodiversity. We examined this ‘P dilemma’ based on data of a study in typical organically managed grasslands in north-eastern Germany. We found a slight, but not significant negative correlation between the soil P contents and phytodiversity. Such a negative correlation was much clearer in broader ecological studies of European grasslands, probably due to a scale effect. Despite comparably small P concentrations, we detected only moderate species richness. Thus, other factors besides P concentrations are limiting phytodiversity here, probably N concentrations. The P concentrations in the biomass of various legume species indicated P limitations for most of them. We conclude that a bundle of adapted management measures could reconcile economic and environmental requirements of organic farmers to a certain degree and thus lessen the conflict between the two ecosystem services ‘biodiversity’ and ‘forage production’.EDITED BY Christine Fürst

Keywords

• biodiversity
• ecosystem service
• grassland
• legumes
• n:p ratio
• organic farming
• soil phosphorus