Establishment of a long-term trial on organic farming at the Hessian State Domain Frankenhausen (2017-2025)

Organic farming has grown significantly in recent years. Nationwide, the share of organically farmed land is close to 10%. In Hesse, it is already 12.6% of the agriculturally used area.

This development has been accompanied by a strong diversification and specialization of organic farms. Today, more and more organic farms do not keep animals. This often results in a strong reorganization of production methods, especially crop rotations. The challenges of sufficient nutrient supply to the plants, as well as the efficient design of nutrient flows, are moving into the focus of practice and science.

Against this backdrop, a permanent trial was launched in the fall of 2017 at the Hessische Staatsdomäne Frankenhausen experimental farm of the University of Kassel to examine modern farm concepts for the sustainability of their production methods. The focus is on:

• The long-term preservation of soil fertility
• The efficient use of on-farm and off-farm fertilizer sources
• The sufficient monetary viability of the farm concepts

In the long-term experiment, four types of farms are investigated, which represent essential cultivation principles and are differentiated into four differentiated farm-typical management strategies (Fig. 1). Different nutrient supply levels are varied in the farm types.

Hessian Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection, Agriculture and Consumer Protection