The ExpeER call for Transnational Access (TA) proposals provides a unique opportunity for research teams and individuals to access some of Europe's major research infrastructures focused on ecosystem research. Each month, we will focus on one or two of these sites.

Focus on the Apelsvoll experimental site (Norway)

Apelsvoll facilities

The ExpeER site is a tile-drained 3.2 ha experimental site on loam soil representing Scandinavian inland climate zone.
Six cropping systems, each with 2 replicates, are practiced on twelve 0.18 ha blocks, each equipped for volume proportional sampling of drainage discharge and surface runoff.
Three systems with cash-cropping and three systems with both arable and fodder crops (both conventional and organic management).

Focus: Yields and yield quality, nutrient leaching and runoff losses, food productivity versus environmental impact, pesticide drainage and runoff, economic aspects, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium balances, soil microbial biomass, insect predators, environmental indices, economic risk assessment, soil structure and earthworm populations.
Exploring long-term effects of a range of cropping systems on production related properties (e.g. yields, yield quality, food productivity, soil physics and – chemistry) and on the environment (soil biology, losses of nutrients and pesticides).

• What are the new developments since the beginning of ExpeER?
"The tools for analysing the experimental data are now expanded to include life cycle assessments (LCA), and a first paper using this method is to be completed shortly. During 2013, a comprehensive change in the water measurement facilities is planned. The current system of measuring the total drainage discharge from each farm (block) as a total, will be changed so that discharge and related volume proportional sampling will be performed at rotation plot level. There are four rotation plots per farm. This infrastructural change opens for increased resolution of the analyses of water- and nutrient dynamics in the experiment, as each crop in the rotations may be assessed separately."

Recent publications

Korsaeth, A. 2012. N, P, and K budgets and changes in selected topsoil nutrients over 10 years in a long-term experiment with conventional and organic crop rotations. Applied and Environmental Soil Science:17 pages. doi:10.1155/2012/539582.

Korsaeth, A. 2008. Relations between nitrogen leaching and food productivity in organic and conventional cropping systems in a long-term field study. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 127: 177-188.

Korsaeth, A. and Eltun, R., 2008. Synthesis of the Apelsvoll cropping system experiment in Norway - nutrient balances, use efficiencies and leaching. In: Organic Crop Production – Ambitions and Limitations (Eds. Holger Kirchmann and Lars Bergström), p. 117-141. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., springer.com.

Riley, H., Pommeresche, R., Eltun, R., Hansen, S. and Korsaeth, A. 2008. Soil structure, organic matter and earthworm activity in a comparison of cropping systems with contrasting tillage, rotations, fertilizer levels and manure use. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 124: 275-284.

Lien, G., Flaten, O., Korsaeth, A., Schumann, K.D., Richardson, J., Eltun, R. and Hardaker, J.B. 2006. Comparison of risk in organic, integrated and conventional cropping systems in Eastern Norway. Journal of Farm Management (12) 7: 385-401.