Stephan M Haefele

Rothamsted Research · Sustainable Agriculture Sciences – Harpenden

A soil spectrum generated by any spectrometer requires a calibration model to estimate soil properties from it. To achieve best results, the assumption is that locally calibrated models offer more accurate predictions. However, achieving this higher accuracy comes with associated costs, complexity, and resource requirements, thus limiting widesprea...

There are many fertilizer additives and alternatives that aim to increase plant nutrient use efficiency and reduce nutrient losses to the environment, here referred to collectively as enhanced efficiency fertilizers (EEFs). However, there is often insufficient published scientific field trial results across a variety of locations, climates, soils,...

Background and Aims Infection by the hemi-parasitic plant Striga hermonthica causes severe host-plant damage and seed production losses. Increased availability of essential plant nutrients reduces infection. Whether, how and to what extent, it also reduces striga-induced host-plant damage is not well studied. Methods Effects of improved macro- and...

Given the importance of soil for the global carbon cycle, it is essential to understand not only how much carbon soil stores but also how long this carbon persists. Previous studies have shown that the amount and age of soil carbon are strongly affected by the interaction of climate, vegetation, and mineralogy. However, these findings are primarily...

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy has been extensively employed to deliver timely and cost-effective predictions of a number of soil properties. However, although several soil spectral laboratories have been established worldwide, the distinct characteristics of instruments and operations still hamper further integration and interoperability across...

As global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases keep rising, there is increased pressure to utilise so-called natural climate solutions. Sequestration of additional organic carbon in agricultural soils is one such approach but it continues to provoke much debate. Published estimates for the potential magnitude of soil carbon sequestration (SC...

Aim Zinc deficiencies are widespread in many soils, limiting crop growth and contributing to Zn deficiencies in human diets. This study aimed at understanding soil factors influencing grain Zn concentrations and uptake of crops grown in different landscape positions in West Amhara, Ethiopia. Methods On-farm experiments were conducted in three land...

Agronomic biofortification, encompassing the use of mineral and organic nutrient resources which improve micronutrient concentrations in staple crops is a potential strategy to promote the production of and access to micronutrient-dense foods at the farm level. However, the heterogeneity of smallholder farming landscapes presents challenges on impl...

Crop rotations with residue incorporation can be beneficial to the sustainability of agriculture, however as long-term studies are required to determine effects on soil properties, farmers usually don’t practice crop rotations. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of crop rotations with residue incorporation (0%, 50%, 100%, and 2...

Proximal soil spectroscopy can be useful to estimate relevant soil properties in real time and cheaply for agricultural decision support and soil health monitoring. However, prediction performance of plant available soil phosphorus by the visNIR has been unsatisfactory as it is considered among the least spectrally active soil properties. Hence, we...

Building up stocks of agricultural soil organic carbon (SOC) can improve soil conditions as well as contribute to climate change mitigation. As a metric, the ratio of SOC to clay offers a better predictor of soil condition than SOC alone, potentially providing a benchmark for ecosystem service payments. We determined SOC:clay ratios for 50 fields i...

Rotational rice systems, involving pastures, other crops and/or livestock, are common in temperate South America, exemplified by the rice-pasture-livestock system of Uruguay which combines very high rice yields with tight nitrogen (N) balances. The generally good nutrient use efficiency in these systems provides a template for nutrient management i...

Soil fertility is at risk in intensive cropping systems when using an exclusive regime of inorganic fertilisers without returning sufficient organic matter to the soil. Our objective was to evaluate the long-term effects of commonly used organic amendments interacting with different rates of inorganic nitrogen fertiliser on crop yields of winter wh...

Agronomic biofortification, encompassing the use of mineral and organic nutrient resources to improve micronutrient concentration in staple crops, is a potential strategy to promote production and access of micronutrient-dense foods at farm-level. However, the heterogeneity of smallholder farming landscapes presents challenges on implementing agron...

The reintegration of crops with livestock systems is proposed as a way of improving the environmental impacts of food production globally, particularly the impact involving nitrogen (N). A detailed understanding of processes governing N fluxes and budgets is needed to design productive and efficient crop–livestock systems. This study aimed to inves...

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy has been extensively employed to deliver timely and cost-effective predictions of a number of soil properties. However, although several soil spectral laboratories have been established worldwide, the distinct characteristics of instruments and operations still hamper further integration and interoperability across...

Modern sensor technologies can provide detailed information about soil variation which allows for more precise application of fertiliser to minimise environmental harm imposed by agriculture. However, growers should lose neither income nor yield from associated uncertainties of predicted nutrient concentrations and thus one must acknowledge and acc...

The dataset comprises primary data for the concentration of 29 mineral micronutrients in cereal grains and up to 84 soil chemistry properties from GeoNutrition project surveys in Ethiopia and Malawi. The work provided insights on geospatial variation in the micronutrient concentration in staple crops, and the potential influencing soil factors. In...

From both nutritional and sanitary perspectives, is necessary to know the quality and safety of duckweeds as a novel protein-rich source by determining total nitrogen (TN) and nitrate (NO3-N). An important constraint for the routine analysis of TN and NO3-N is the high cost of analysis. Fourier Transformed Mid Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FT-MIR) has ad...

With climate and land use changes, it is becoming increasingly important to understand not only how much carbon is and will be stored in soils, but also how long this C will remain in soils. Estimates of C age can provide useful information about the timescales on which C will respond to such changes. It is generally accepted that the interaction o...

Abstract Dietary zinc (Zn) deficiency is widespread globally, and in particular among people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In Malawi, dietary sources of Zn are dominated by maize and spatially dependent variation in grain Zn concentration, which will affect dietary Zn intake, has been reported at distances of up to ~ 100 km. The aim of this study wa...

Realistic targets for soil organic carbon (SOC) concentrations are needed, accounting for differences between soils and land uses. We assess the use of SOC/clay ratio for this purpose by comparing changes over time in (a) the National Soil Inventory of England and Wales, first sampled in 1978–1983 and resampled in 1994–2003, and (b) two long-term e...

Digital extension tools (DETs) include phone calls, WhatsApp groups and specialised smartphone applications used for agricultural knowledge brokering. We researched processes through which DETs have (and have not) been used by farmers and other extension actors in low-and middle-income countries. We interviewed 40 DET developers across 21 countries...

Micronutrient malnutrition is a global health challenge affecting almost half of the global population, causing poor physical and mental development of children and a wide range of illnesses. It is most prevalent in young girls, women, and pre-school children who are suffering particularly from the low consumption of vitamins and micronutrients. Gi...

With the increasing popularity of local blending of fertilisers, the fertiliser industry faces issues regarding quality control and fertiliser adulteration. Another problem is the contamination of fertilisers with trace elements that have been shown to subsequently accumulate in the soil and be taken up by plants, posing a danger to the environment...

Little is known about the impact of long-term intensive irrigated rice cropping on secondary macro and micronutrients in soils and crops. Therefore, the present study analysed the effect of intensive irrigated rice cropping on nutrient concentrations in soils and rice (grain and straw at harvest) in two long-term experiments that were established i...

Resulting from the positive effect on rice productivity, the application of biochar and controlled-release urea in the form of polymer-coated urea (PCU) in crop production attracts more and more interest. However, field studies considering the combined effect of biochar and PCU are rare. This 2-year study examined the combined effects of biochar an...

In sub-Saharan Africa there is increasing focus on identifying women’s trait preferences within crop breeding to enable gender-responsive product development. In the case of maize, breeding programs are ready to incorporate specific traits to increase gender-responsiveness but lack guidance on what these specific traits might be. We propose an indu...

Pasture micro-nutrient concentrations are often deficient for herbage productivity and the health of livestock. The aim of this study was to investigate soil and herbage micro-nutrient content and the effects on yield on the three pasture systems of the North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP): high-sugar grass + legume mix minus nitrogen (N) fertilizer (bl...

The prediction accuracy of soil properties by proximal soil sensing has made their application more practical. However, in order to gain sufficient accuracy, samples are typically air-dried and milled before spectral measurements are made. Calibration of the spectra is usually achieved by making wet chemistry measurements on a subset of the field s...

Over many decades there has been a global trend away from mixed farming and integrated crop-livestock systems to more-intensive single commodity systems. This has distorted local and global nutrient balances, resulting in environmental pollution as well as soil nutrient depletion. Future food systems should include integrated crop-livestock systems...

Soil organic carbon (SOC) stabilization and destabilization has been studied intensively. Yet, the factors which control SOC content across scales remain unclear. Earlier studies demonstrated that soil texture and geochemistry strongly affect SOC content. However, those findings primarily rely on data from temperate regions where soil mineralogy, w...

Vibrational spectroscopy such as Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), has been used successfully for soil diagnosis owing to its low cost, minimal sample preparation, non-destructive nature, and reliable results. This study aimed at optimizing one of the essential settings during the acquisition of FTIR spectra (viz. Scans number) using the standardi...

Micronutrient deficiencies (MNDs) remain widespread among people in sub-Saharan Africa1–5, where access to sufficient food from plant and animal sources that is rich in micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) is limited due to socioeconomic and geographical reasons4–6. Here we report the micronutrient composition (calcium, iron, selenium and zinc) o...

Liming has widespread and significant impacts on soil processes and crop responses. The aim of this study was to describe the relationships between exchangeable cation concentrations in soil and the relative yield of spring barley. The hypothesis was that yield is restricted by the concentration of a single exchangeable cation in the soil. For simp...

The decreasing mineral concentrations in the grains of cereals have recently stimulated research to better understand the cropping determinants of grain mineral composition. This study aimed to analyze the effects of liming on the mineral concentrations in the grains of three cereal crops: barley, oat, wheat. The hypothesis tested was that soil pH...

Recent compilations of global soil radiocarbon data suggest that current Earth System Models underestimate the mean age of soil carbon (C). The discrepancy between data-derived estimates and model calculations might be due to an inadequate representation of processes that control C persistence in soils-especially in understudied regions. Here, we i...

Host plant defence mechanisms (resistance and tolerance) and plant nutrition are two of the most widely proposed components for the control of hemiparasitic weeds of the genus Striga in tropical cereal production systems. Neither of the two components alone is effective enough to prevent parasitism and concomitant crop losses. This review explores...

Soil property and class maps for the continent of Africa were so far only available at very generalised scales, with many countries not mapped at all. Thanks to an increasing quantity and availability of soil samples collected at field point locations by various government and/or NGO funded projects, it is now possible to produce detailed pan-Afric...

How well could one predict the growth of a leafy crop from reflectance spectra from the soil and how might a grower manage the crop in the light of those predictions? Topsoil from two fields was sampled and analysed for various nutrients, particle-size distribution and organic carbon concentration. Crop measurements (lettuce diameter) were derived...

Zinc (Zn) is an important element determining the grain quality of staple food crops and deficient in many Ethiopian soils. However, farming systems are highly variable in Ethiopia due to different soil types and landscape cropping positions. Zinc availability and uptake by plants from soil and fertilizer sources are governed by the retention and r...

The application of biochar to agricultural soils to increase nutrient availability, crop production and carbon sequestration has gained increasing interest but data from field experiments on temperate, marginal soils are still underrepresented. In the current study, biochar, produced from organic residues (digestates) of a biogas plant, was applied...

Nitrogen (N) use efficiency in rainfed agriculture is generally low because of poor management and unavailability of suitable rice genotypes. There is a need to select rice genotypes with high N use efficiency for these specific environments, which was investigated at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Regional Station, Rajshahi, in two succes...

Spectroscopic methods for the determination of soil texture are faster and cheaper than the standard methods, but how do the results compare? To address this question, laser diffraction analysis (LDA) and mid-infrared spectroscopy (MIRS) analysis have been compared to conventional sieve-pipette measurements of texture in diverse European and Kenyan...

Over the past two decades soil spectroscopy, particularly, in the infrared range, is becoming a powerful technique to simplify analysis relative to the traditional chemical methods. It is known as a rapid, cost-effective, quantitative and eco-friendly technique, which can provide hyperspectral data with narrow and numerous wavebands, both in the la...

Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and Diffuse Reflectance Fourier Transformed Mid-Infrared (DRIFT-MIR) spectroscopy are rapid and cost-effective analytical tools for material characterization. Here, we provide an assessment of these methods for the analysis of total Carbon, Nitrogen and total elemental composition of multiple elements in organic a...

Soil property and class maps for the continent of Africa were so far only available at very generalised scales, with many countries not mappedat all. Thanks to an increasing quantity and availability of soil samples collected at field point locations by various government and/or NGOfunded projects, it is now possible to produce detailed pan-African...

Earlier studies have demonstrated that soil texture and geochemistry strongly affect soil organic carbon (SOC) content. However, those findings primarily rely on data from temperate regions with soil mineralogy, weathering status and climatic conditions that generally differ from tropical and subtropical regions. We investigated soil properties and...

The non‐flooding plastic film‐mulching cultivation (NFMC) is an important water‐saving rice (Oryza sativa L.) production technique for mountainous areas. Several studies indicated that this promising production system had positive effects on rice growth compared with the traditional flooding method. However, two obvious disadvantages need to be mod...

This is an assessment framework for digital extension tools designed for farmers and extensionists (e.g. agri-apps, YouTube videos, SMS advisory services). This framework was created through 40 practitioner interviews (20 Sub-Saharan Africa, 10 South Asia, 10 Southeast Asia), 52 user interviews (Bihar, India).

Simple measures of appropriate levels of soil organic matter are needed for soil evaluation, management and monitoring, based on readily measurable soil properties. We test an index of soil organic matter based on the soil organic carbon (SOC) to clay ratio, defined by thresholds of SOC/clay ratio for specified levels of soil structural quality. Th...

This report describes the work completed during a week long data study group hosted by the Alan Turing Institute. The challenge was provided by Rothamsted Research and looks at predicting soil and plant physicochemical properties from soil infrared (IR) spectra. Three datasets were explored and modelled using a combination of established and more r...

Two field experiments were conducted at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Tarahara, Nepal during 2012 and 2013 to determine the effect of agronomic management on growth and yield of Swarna Sub1 under flash floods. The first experiment was laid out in a split plot design with three replications; and four different nutrient combinations at nurs...

At present, organic fertilizers are not widely used in intensive arable agriculture, and not much is known about their effects on crop nutrition. In a field experiment at Rothamsted, UK, anaerobic digestate (AD), compost, farmyard manure (FYM), straw, and mixes of amendment + straw, were applied at: 1, 1.75, 2.5 or 3.5 t carbon ha−1, with all plots...

Grain protein content (GPC) is a key quality attribute and an important marketing trait in wheat. In the current cropping systems worldwide, GPC is mostly determined by nitrogen (N) fertilizer application. The objectives of this study were to understand the differences in N response between high and low GPC wheat genotypes, and to assess the value...

Networks of transcription factors regulate diverse physiological processes in plants to ensure that plants respond to abiotic stresses rapidly and efficiently. In this study, expression of two DREB/CBF genes, TaDREB3 and TaCBF5L was modulated in transgenic wheat and barley, by using stress‐responsive promoters HDZI‐3 and HDZI‐4. The promoters were...