Archive
770 posts
Forecasting crop load in apple trees
Crop-load management is a vital cultural measure in apple-growing. Only when the number of fruits per tree corresponds to target crop-load levels do yield and quality match over the years. Crop load is influenced by various factors, and is deliberately reduced through thinning measures. The necessary intensity of thinning, however, is difficult to gauge, since…
Breeding fire blight resistant apple varieties
215 apple selections and cultivars were screened in a glasshouse shoot infection test for their susceptibility to fire blight in the frame of projects that were financed by the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture. Selected varieties were also examined for their flower susceptibility towards fire blight in an open air protected orchard. Moreover, a fire…
The Swiss plant breeding sector – a spatial, temporal and thematic analysis
The spectrum of crop species grown within Switzerland as well as their agricultural performance is changing over time. Traditionally, cereal, horticultural and forage production play a major role in Swiss agriculture, and it is crucial to maintain the productivity of these crops under future socio-economic and environmental conditions. However, to focus on only these economically…
Alfalfa variety trials (2011-2013)
From 2011 through 2013, 36 varieties of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) were examined in comparative variety trials at five experimental sites. All varieties were grown in pure stands and in mixture with gramineous plants. The parameters assessed were dry matter yield, juvenile development, regrowth speed, general impression, stem thickness, competitive ability, persistence, digestibility of organic…
Weed suppression by cover crops: analyzing different factors
Cover crops represent an increasingly widespread agricultural technique in Switzerland as they provide different ecosystem services. One important role of cover crops is weed control, which can be explained by resource competition (for water, nutrients and light) and allelopathic effects (biochemical interactions between plants). To better understand the phenomenon of weed suppression by cover crops,…
The future of wheat breeding
Unlike the situation in the European Union, where wheat breeding is almost exclusively in the hands of the private sector, public breeding of disease-resistant wheat with high baking quality has a long-standing tradition in Switzerland. Important increases in yield potential are still possible here. After World War I, wheat yield in other European countries increased…
Variety and cultivation trials with winterhardy poppy
Poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) is a traditional field crop of Switzerland. During the Second World War, it was still grown on around 1300 ha with a view to the country becoming self-sufficient in cooking oil. Today, poppy is only grown in Switzerland on a few hectares. With the entry into force of the 2014–2017 agricultural…
Substantial progress in variety testing with red clover
Agroscope noted significant breeding progress in the variety tests with 30 new cultivars and 24 already recommended varieties of red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) conducted at six locations from 2011 to 2013. Yield, vigour, juvenile development, resistance to leaf diseases, winter-hardiness and persistence were all evaluated. For the persistent varieties («Mattenklee» type), results allowing for…
Wood ashes: a new fertilizer for Swiss agriculture
The use of wood ashes as potash fertilizer was tested on sunflower. The greenhouse experiment was conducted in Changins and used wood ashes provided by the wood power station Enerbois (Vaud). These ashes contained high amounts of Ca and K but also trace elements, particularly Cu, Zn and Ni. Results of the trial highlighted an…
Hybrid cereals are progressing
Low return on investment from breeding licenses has made breeding of self-fertilizing species like wheat and barley less attractive. However, for some decades, the variety types have been changing in Europe, because cytoplasmic male sterile systems of outcrossing species like maize, rape seed and rye exist for the production of affordable hybrid seeds, which have…
Pests and pathogens in the cabbageoilseed rape agroecosystem
The cabbage – oilseed rape agroecosystem consists of cruciferous crop plants with different levels of productivity and labour intensity. In Switzerland, such crop plants are cultivated mostly in small-scale agricultural settings. Cruciferous crop plants are hosts for a wide range of pest insects and plant pathogens. However, the importance of the damage caused by pests…
ProfiCrops: the status of efficiency, effectiveness and added-value
As with the other two research programmes Agroscope (AgriMontana and NutriScope), ProfiCrops began in 2008 and will end in March 2014. To bring the programme to a close, several events were organised and a series of articles were published in Recherche Agronomique Suisse from July 2013 onwards. This last article presents an assessment of ProfiCrops,…
Innovation mapping in plant production: the case of HOLL rapeseed
The Swiss plant production sector aims at maintaining its competitiveness, even in a liberalized economy. The research program ProfiCrops takes a look into innovations generated for the plant production sector. Innovations are a requisite for maintaining the competitiveness of the agricultural sector. A tool allowing to map innovations in the plant production sector has been…
Potato susceptibility to blackleg disease caused by Dickeya spp.
Pectin lytic bacteria belonging to the genera Pectobacterium and Dickeya can cause several diseases on potato, such as stem rots, commonly named «blacklegs», and tuber rots, which are referred to as «soft rots». The blackleg symptom is the primary cause for the rejection of potato seed lots in Switzerland. The field trials conducted in this…
Effects of many years of organic agriculture
More and more farmers consider to switch from conventional to organic production. What effect, then, does this have on yield and environmental performance? In particular, the question of how the duration of organic management affects plant yield, weed populations, biodiversity and soil fertility has rarely been investigated. To investigate this question, we compared 34 plots…
Genetic diversity in agriculture
Genetic diversity – the variety of genes and alleles within a species – constitutes the most basic level of biodiversity, and is an important prerequisite for productivity and sustainability in agricultural production systems. We have developed and applied various methods to determine genetic diversity on farms in Europe, Ukraine and Uganda. A questionnairebased survey conducted…
Five ideas that have changed research in the cropping sector
Innovation is now a prerequisite for institutions aiming to maintain their competitiveness in a more and more liberalized economy. This is also true for agricultural research. One of the objective of ProfiCrops, the research program Agroscope, was to promote the innovation process leading to added value in the cropping sector. This article describes five ideas,…
Effects of a severe drought on a permanent meadow in the Jura mountains
In order to determine the impacts of a severe summer drought on the agronomic value and diverse physiological and functional characteristics of a permanent meadow, a trial was carried out in 2012 on a mountain farm located in the Swiss Jura (1200 m). Two factors – management type (mowing vs grazing) and moisture (drought vs…
Water availability and forage production in arable crops areas
A comparison trial between various feed strategies (crop rotation versus ley) was established in 2009 in the western part of Switzerland, at an altitude of 390 m. From 2010, two water regimes were tested, corresponding to the average annual amounts of 900 mm (local rainfall) and 1200 mm (additional water supply by drop irrigation). During…
Yellow nutsedge: Actualities on Cyperus esculentus L. in Switzerland
Yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus L.), a Cyperaceae species, propagates exclusively with tubers in the ground. Its abundance in Switzerland has largely increased in the last 20 years, due to changes of land use and important difficulties to control. The species is not well known to farmers yet, and tubers are increasingly displaced by vehicles, machines,…
