Breaking new ground

The world’s longest running agricultural study adds to the debate on organic-inorganic farming

- SHAGUN KAPIL

THE FARMLAND in the picture might look unremarkable to most. But for agricultural scientists, it is part the planet’s most famous 4.5 hectares (ha). The field in Hertfordshire county of southern England has been under continuous scientific experiments for the past 178 years, making it the world’s oldest and longest running study.

The research was started by agricultural scientist John Bennet Lawes and chemist Joseph Henry Gilbert under the Rothamsted Research institution in the autumn of 1843, when the first crop of wheat was sown on a field named Broadbalk. Every year since then, researchers from the institute have sown winter wheat on all or some parts of the field to compare crop yields, when grown using inorganic fertilisers with those when grown using organic or farmyard manure (FYM). A patch that receives no fertiliser or manure inputs is also maintained for control treatment.

The aim of the Broadbalk experiment is to test the effects of different organic and inorganic fertilisers on soil fertility and study the optimum nutrition requirements to improve crop yield. The research took shape by growing the same crop each year on the same land, a practice considered bad farming in the 19th century; Lawes and Gilbert had realised this was the best way to learn about the individual crop nutrient requirements.

AND STAGE WAS SET

Under Broadbalk experiment, the land was divided into 19 strips of wheat field, each 300 m long and 6 m wide. To test the benefits of different combinations, some strips received inorganic fertilisers, some organic and some others a combination of both. One strip was left received neither of these.