FELD 01/2022

patchCROP patchCROP

patchCROP patchCROP It’s a typical landscape in eastern Brandenburg in the last days of April. The vast rapeseed fields are just coming into bloom; just next to it, cereal plants have covered the land with a lush green. Some fields are still bare — this is where maize will be planted soon. The hilly landscapes are interrupted by alleys of fruit trees, country lanes, isolated woodland shrubs and villages. One has to look a little closer to discover a field between Müncheberg and Steinhöfel that is different from all the others. It is not large or sole cropped — instead, a chessboard pattern of squares in different shades and colors covers more 70 hectares of land. Visible from afar, a small transmission tower with a solar panel indicates that this is more than just a common cropland. A LANDSCAPE LABORATORY FOR FIELD RESEARCH »Please be careful and stay on the tracks«, asks Dr. Kathrin Grahmann during a visit of the site which is part of a large-scale landscape experiment. The project manager moves swiftly forward and describes the crops growing to the left and right of the path. Oats, lupine and winter rye are sprouting on the half-hectare squares. All in all, nine different crops and additional catch crops are grown here on 30 so-called »patches«, small field units under on-farm conditions, in collaboration with the on-farm partner »Komturei Lietzen«. Researchers at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg hence named this landscape laboratory »patchCROP«, which is unique in Europe. The patchCROP landscape laboratory located in Tempelberg, Brandenburg, between Berlin and Frankfurt / Oder. 04 05