Polycultures, mixtures of different crop species in the same field, may provide both production and ecological benefits. Silage annual cropping systems incorporate polycultures take advantage species’ niche partitioning, potentially stabilizing yield variation due to abiotic stress. Using maize (Zea mays L.) silage as basis our 3‐year study, we tested impact on soil attributes replacing a fract...

Silage maize cultivation is gaining importance in organic farming, and thus its environmental climate impacts. The effects of digestate fertilization combination with different catch crops tillage intensities are investigated a long-term field experiment southern Germany. tested variants (a) after winter rye, plowed, unfertilized (b) fertilized biogas digestate, (c) legume-rich cover crop mixtu...

The current study aimed to compare the nutritional, chemical, and fermentative changes of maize silages with some additives prepared in standard glass jars (SGJ) vacuum-packed model polyethylene bags (VP, Rostock). treatment groups were control group (no addition), barley (grinded addition 20 40 g kg-1), lactic acid bacteria (LAB) group, LAB+enzyme mixture group. ensiling method had no effect o...

VIII Abstract Anaerobic digestion of energy crops for biogas production has attracted much interest in recent years. In Germany, the most common process is the continuous wet-fermentation of energy crops with cattle slurry or pig slurry (co-digestion). But also the digestion of energy crops as single substrate without slurry (mono-digestion) becomes more important. Because of the great diversit...

Background: Waterweeds (Elodea nuttallii and Elodea canadensis) are invasive neophytes, which have been proliferating at a phenomenal rate during the last decades in German waterways. In case of overgrowth, the strong covering of vegetation can cause problems in hydroelectric power plants and leads to limitations in ship and boat traffic as well as in use for bathing and fishing activities. Aft...

The cultivation of perennial wild plant mixtures (WPMs) is becoming increasingly important in Germany for providing sustainably produced bioenergy. However, energy cropping systems always raise the question how to reclaim land arable crops. This study examined this issue by looking at a former WPM area was returned an organic farm. From 2013 2018, harvested annually autumn. 2019 2020, it co-man...

Male Holstein (15) and female crossbred (15) calves, weaned from milk replacer at the end of experimental week 8, were fattened on a maize silage and concentrate diet (MSC). As a control 14 male Holstein calves were conventionally fattened on milk replacer only. The control calves reached the target slaughter weight of about 135 kg after 24.5 weeks and the MSC males after 28 weeks. The female M...

We aimed at quantifying the extent to which agricultural management practices linked to animal production and land use affect environmental outcomes at a larger scale. Two practices closely linked to farm environmental performance at a larger scale are farming intensity, often resulting in greater off-farm environmental impacts (land, non-renewable energy use etc.) associated with the productio...