28.04.2025

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

New study of Dutch-German research team with participation of University of Tübingen

The less intensively you manage the soil, the better the soil can function. Such as not ploughing as often or using more grass-clover mixtures as cover crops. These are the conclusions of a research team led by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) with the participation of the University of Tübingen and Wageningen University & Research. Surprisingly, it applies to both conventional and organic farming. These important insights for making agriculture more sustainable are published in the scientific journal Science today.

Growing food more sustainably: what's the best way to do this? It is one of the big challenges: producing enough food without compromising the soil. After all, healthy soil has many functions - called multifunctionality - and for sustainable agriculture these must be preserved. “A multifunctional soil is essential for sustainable food production, because plants get their food from it,” state the researchers. “Soil also has indispensable roles in water storage, coping with climate change and disease suppression.”

Research on farms across the Netherlands now shows that it is mainly the intensity of tillage that determines whether the soil can retain all its functions. Interestingly, the difference between conventional and organic farming has less of an influence. In both types of agricultural systems, a lot of variation is found in soil tillage and management. “The good news is that in conventional agriculture, which is the vast majority, there is a lot to gain,” states soil ecologist and NIOO professor Wim van der Putten. “On all farms, including organic ones, it is important at this point not to cultivate the soil too intensively. For example: ploughing less. Inverting the soil during ploughing is a very big disruption for soil life.“

Not only less frequent ploughing but also making more use of mixtures of grasses and plants from the bean family, such as clovers, contributes to multifunctional healthy soil. You can alternate these with growing cereals such as wheat, barley, spelt and rye.The research team took samples and carried out measurements at more than 50 Dutch agricultural farms on both clay and sandy soils. This was always done in pairs: a farm with conventional agriculture plus an organic neighbouring farm. The soil type and other conditions were then very similar. “That way, we could compare them like twins,” clarifies Guusje Koorneef. Together with Sophie van Rijssel, she conducted her PhD research on this topic.

A wide array of soil properties was measured and farmers shared what farming practices they applied. The organic carbon present in the soil proved to be the best predictor of soil multifunctionality, and for “live indications” this was the bacteria biomass. Koorneef adds: “We looked at both sandy and marine clay soils. These are two very different soil types in the Netherlands. And we see the same picture in both soil types.”

“The popular term of sustainable intensification is contradictory to our results,” argues co-researcher Kyle Mason-Jones, now working at the Universität Tübingen. “More intensive soil management leads to reduction of soil functions and is thus less sustainable.” Therefore, the researchers propose a new, appropriate goal. “Productive de-intensification. If it is successful, you will get more functions from a less intensively cultivated soil while retaining the crop yield as much as possible.”

Publication:
Sophie Q. van Rijssel, Guusje J. Koorneef, G. F. (Ciska) Veen, Mirjam M. Pulleman, Ron G. M. de Goede, Rob N. J. Comans, Wim H. van der Putten, Kyle Mason-Jones: Conventional and organic farms with more intensive management have lower soil functionality. In: SCIENCE, Vol 388, Issue 6745 (24 Apr 2025), pp. 410-415; DOI: 10.1126/science.adr0211 

Press release Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW)