Crop rota­tion as risk manage­ment

For many years, Jürgen concen­trated on sugar beet as part of his conven­tional arable farming. The crop occu­pied about a third of the farm’s arable land and had a massive impact on the crop rota­tion. The beet was often lifted so late that a winter cereal could not be sown. At the same time, the regional Lettenke­uper soils around the farm show signif­i­cant vari­a­tions in quality; within a radius of 5km, values on the German scale (from 0; poor to 100; excel­lent) range from 32 to over 74 points. In the better areas, the root crops performed signif­i­cantly better, which further limited the options avail­able.

When the terms of the German FAKT support scheme for growing peas and oilseeds changed, it became virtu­ally impos­sible for the farm to make those crops econom­i­cally viable so they were dropped from the rota­tion. “This left our rota­tion far too narrow,” Jürgen recalls.

Fortu­nately, the narrow crop rota­tion had not yet resulted in depleted soils, erosion or yield losses. Never­the­less, Jürgen wanted to take precau­tions. “Soil is our produc­tion base and must remain healthy. However, a three-crop rota­tion does not promote healthy soils. That’s why we need a wide crop rota­tion,” he says, explaining his deci­sion to diver­sify the rota­tions.

The turning point came with the start of the Future Resources, Agri­cul­ture and Nature Conser­va­tion project (FRANZ) in 2016. “I wanted to find out what a conven­tional farm is capable of, and where I stood,” says Jürgen. Rather than relying on pub-talk clichés, he focused on figures, data and facts. The first biodi­ver­sity survey on the farm confirmed that the inten­sively managed system had the same level of diver­sity as a compa­rable organic farm. This came as a surprise to Jürgen and spurred him on to drive diver­si­fi­ca­tion forward.

Rape­seed instead of sugar beet

Since then, Jürgen has come to see biodi­ver­sity as a compo­nent of his crop rota­tion. When choosing crops, however, economic viability remains the primary consid­er­a­tion. New crops are only consid­ered if they are econom­i­cally viable.

When sugar beet prices fell and a pest problem of leafhop­pers emerged three years ago, Jürgen scaled back his sugar beet cultivation. Sugar beet was replaced by rape­seed, which had last been grown on the farm 30 years ago. “Oilseeds have been more econom­i­cally viable than root crops in recent years,” he explains.

For Jürgen, however, inte­grating maize into the farm’s oper­a­tions on a large scale would involve too many obsta­cles. The farm’s pigs are fed via auto­matic mash feeders, which are not designed to handle single‑silaged corn‑cob mix. Grain maize, on the other hand, ripens too late in the year and would need to be actively dried. As a result, Jürgen only grows the crop on a small scale.

He tested and rejected other crops, including soya, onions, oat-vetch mixes and trit­i­cale, finding either there was no market, processing was too complex, or the crops proved too risky in terms of cultivation.

Soil also plays a part

In addi­tion to economic viability, soil also plays a part in crop rota­tion deci­sions. Good soils deliver higher yields and are used more inten­sively. “The crop rota­tion here is a little narrower,” Jürgen explains. “Biodi­ver­sity tends to happen on the lower-quality fields.”

On good soils, Jürgen usually relies on narrower rota­tions like winter wheat followed by winter barley, a catch crop, sugar beet or maize then another winter wheat. Peas are some­times brought in, too. The catch crops are intended to cover the soil, root through it and build up humus.

On poorer soils, Jürgen delib­er­ately keeps the crop rota­tion wider. In these areas, he more frequently incor­po­rates spring crops, peas or biodi­ver­sity areas. The crop rota­tion might there­fore look different with winter barley followed by winter wheat, rape­seed or sugar beet, winter wheat and finally spring grain or peas. The crop rota­tion is supple­mented by wild­flower strips, flow­ering clover head­lands and more exten­sive sub-areas. He hardly grows catch crops on poorer soils these days, as the high cost of seed often makes it unprof­itable there.

No rigid system

The farm does not follow a rigid crop rota­tion. Instead, Jürgen adapts his plan­ning to the current condi­tions.

As well as soil and weather condi­tions, work organ­i­sa­tion also plays a part. With only 1.75 full‑time equiv­a­lent staff members, effi­ciency is essen­tial. Jürgen there­fore groups fields with the same crops spatially close together, cutting down the travel time between them.

Working time windows are also impor­tant. If a favourable sowing window closes before the crop has been drilled to the planned extent, the schedule has to change. “Then another crop goes in,” Jürgen explains.

For the farm manager, an expanded crop rota­tion also means thinking less in terms of fixed patterns. “With three crop types, I can just mind­lessly run through my programme. That’s no longer possible with more elements in the crop rota­tion to consider,” Jürgen reports. However, after 10 years of imple­menting wider crop rota­tions and biodi­ver­sity measures, he has now adapted to the changed condi­tions and devel­oped a new routine.

Less inten­sity, more stability

Jürgen does see draw­backs to the new system. It is less geared towards maximum yield, which makes moderate yield losses more likely. In conjunc­tion with the partial shift towards exten­si­fi­ca­tion, weed pres­sure also increased.

Thirty years ago, the farm was still geared towards maximum yields with a narrow crop rota­tion. Jürgen now doubts that this will work in the long term: “Put figu­ra­tively, you can drive a car at 200km/h – at some point, either the car will flag or your concen­tra­tion will, so you slow down again. It’s the same in farming; you can take every­thing to extremes, but then some­thing is bound to fall by the wayside.”

I priori­tise the soil over the last hundred­weight.

Jürgen Maurer

A more diverse crop rota­tion is intended to main­tain soil fertility in the long term, rather than just deliv­ering marginal yield increases. Soil health takes prece­dence over the final hundred­weight. A variety of crop types also ensures balanced risk manage­ment. Total crop fail­ures are becoming less likely. Despite all this, yields are falling across the entire farm as a result of climate change – even the expanded crop rota­tions have not been able to prevent this so far.

Soil life as the next step

In the future, Jürgen intends to focus even more on soil health and to promote soil life. He aims to achieve this by increasing organic matter, reducing ploughing and ensuring that crop residues are incor­po­rated more effec­tively.

In his view, one possible approach would be a one-year clover fallow. The clover is intended to fix nitrogen, build up humus and loosen the soil. Insects and small game like partridges and brown hares could also benefit from this. So far, however, imple­men­ta­tion has failed due to a lack of support. “I can do without produc­tion, but finan­cially it still has to add up at the end of the day,” Jürgen explains.

Resilience reimag­ined

The most signif­i­cant change on Jürgen’s farm is there­fore perhaps neither the rape­seed nor the addi­tional spring crops, but rather the way he thinks about the farm today – less rigid, but with a broader base and greater adapt­ability. For him, resilience no longer means opti­mising the system for maximum yield but rather being able to respond flex­ibly to new risks like extreme weather events, new pests or volatile markets. “One crop always delivers,” he says. For him, that is precisely where the strength of wide crop rota­tions lies.