Nitrogen leaching from organic agriculture and conventional crop rotations

A great challenge to science is to elucidate how agriculture can feed the increasing world population without damaging the environment, while preserving other resources such as freshwater. In the Seine basin, characterised by intensive agriculture, most of surface and underground water is contaminated by nitrate. Conventional agriculture has regularly increased the use of industrial fertilisers since the WWII, leading to high nitrogen leaching, as shown by lysimeters or suction cup measurements. Such measurements are very scarce for other agricultural systems such as organic farming (Hansen et al. 2000; Haas et al. 2002; Mondelaers et al. 2009). The goal of our study is to investigate nitrogen leaching from organic agriculture, taking into account complete organic rotations (6-9 years). We hypothesize that leaching for organic farming is less than for conventional farming, although factors such as different practices, types of soil and age of conversion need to be taken into consideration. This work should have an impact on nitrogen sufficiency and management of organic practices.