Dry run for cropping systems
To safeguard the long-term future of agricultural production in Switzerland, ETH and Agroscope are investigating how resistant the country’s cropping systems are to drought.
The research team of Prof. Nina Buchman together with colleagues from Agroscope are conducting a field experiment to investigate how well the common cropping systems in Switzerland react to sustained drought. Launched in 2017 and scheduled to run for three years, the experiment seeks to compare drought responses under conventional and organic cultivation with and without soil tillage – or, in the case of organic cultivation, with reduced tillage to keep weeds in check. The crops chosen for the experiment are maize, a mixed crop of peas and barley for forage, and winter wheat.