The Grain legume integrated project (GLIP) is a large multinational project (61 partners) striving to develop new strategies to enhance the use of grain legumes crops in food and animal feed with special emphasis towards using state-of-the-art methodologies (including genomics and bioinformatics, together with transcriptomics and metabolomics) together with more conventional breeding and cropping strategies.
Grain legumes such as peas, chickpeas, beans and lupins have a significant role to play in European agriculture because of their value as an important source of vegetable protein for human and animal alike and their beneficial impact on the environment. However, the use of these crops in European farming systems is relatively limited compared with the rest of the world because of problems with nutrition, disease, drought and plant morphology. Thus, the principle objective of the project is to mobilise and integrate the European research effort on grain legumes to address these major agricultural constraints affecting the production of grain legumes crops in Europe.
The inclusion of legumes in the European cropping systems is still rather low in regard to their beneficial functions towards sustainable and multifunctional agroecosystems. Risø DTU is responsible for the task to use legumes to develop healthy and sustainable agriculture. Thus, Risø DTU and partners challenge the need to the better exploit advantageous ecological services of legumes, when integrated in cropping systems while optimizing their potential profitability for the farmer. The main activity will be grain legume sole- and inter-cropping field trials addressing N2-fixation potentials (and thereby artificial fertilizer substitution)
Through field and lysimeter experiments Risø DTU aims at
- determine within a farmers field the variability regarding symbiotic N2-fixation using 15N stable isotope natural abundance techniques
- determine the effects of residues, their quality and catch cropping on soil N dynamics and nitrate leaching.
Leguminous symbiotic N2-fixation can be increased by management of the crop for enhanced and stabilized N2-fixation and yield. Improved understanding of spatial and temporal N2-fixation variation plays an important role developing successful novel management strategies.
The increasing international emphasis on developing environmentally sustainable agroecosystems for food, fibre and fuel production, with less reliance on non-renewable resources, positions legumes in an important role. Legumes can convert atmospheric nitrogen (N2) to plant available N through symbiosis with N2-fixing Rhizobium bacteria. Growing grain legumes and the subsequent decomposition of N rich residues replenish N removed by harvesting without the addition of fertilizer N and contribute fixed N to subsequent crops. Legume-based cropping systems may play a significant role in reducing global warming, especially when taking into account the potency of N2O emissions and potential adoption of less meat-intensive diets. However, because of the high temporal variability in yield and biological N2-fixation of grain legumes, their potential to supply soil N can vary greatly.
Selected publications from the project:
- Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Mundus, S and Jensen, ES (2010) Temperate grain legume nitrogen use and subsequent cereals yield effects using clover-grass as catch crop. Field Crops Research, in prep
- Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Holdensen, L, Wulfsohn, D, and Jensen, ES (2010) Spatial variation of N2-fixation in field pea (Pisum sativum L.) at the field scale determined by the 15N natural abundance method. Plant and Soil, online
- Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Mundus, S and Jensen, ES (2009) Nitrogen dynamics following grain legumes and subsequent catch crops and the effects on succeeding cereal crops. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 84, 281-291
- Laberge, G, Ambus, P, Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Jensen, ES (2006) Stabilization and plant uptake of N from 15N-labelled crop residue 16.5 years after incorporation in soil. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 38: 1998-2000
Participants:
GLIP involves 61 partners and it is suggested to go to the homepage for detailed information. Risø DTU were working closely together with: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible, Cordoba and Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Montpellier and Toulouse.
Role:
Risø DTU is workpackage manager for WP 2.1 “Lower input farming”
Resources:
GLIP is funded by the European Commission Contract No. FOOD-CT-2004-506223 New Strategies to Improve Grain Legumes for Food and Feed under the 6th Framework Programme
Duration:
GLIP is funded to run from 2004 to 2008
Web page:
GLIP has a webpage for further information at
http://www.eugrainlegumes.org/
Employees involved:
Per Ambus (Mass spectrometry and 15N analysis) and Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen (field experiments, intercropping strategies and N2-fixation estimates)
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