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Arable weeds are one of the most endangered species groups in Europe. Modern agriculture and intensive land use management with the application of herbicides and fertilisers, enhanced seed cleaning, simplified crop rotations and abandonment of marginal arable sites are the main causes for the continuous decline of arable weeds. However, besides these changes in land use also global climate change may challenge the adaptability of arable weeds. Most scientists agree that the frequency of extreme meteorological conditions will increase in the future. As a consequence, plants of Central Europe will be subject to higher temperatures and reduced water supply due to longer intervals without precipitation during the growing season. We exposed seeds of five common and five endangered arable weed species to different temperatures and water potentials to study i) how this plant group responds to higher temperatures and lower moisture during germination in general and ii) whether there is a significant difference between common and endangered species in this respect.

Climate change will affect the agricultural ecosystem on different levels. It also alters interactions of weeds and crops. Each weed reacts on an individual basis to changes. Weeds can show an increase or decrease in abundance, can invade new areas or can completely vanish. They also can change traits to be more competitive. Overall, this will result in a different abundance and composition of weeds, as well as a different damaging potential. Land-use changes and agricultural adoption strategies to climate change will have dramatic influence on the interactions as well. Based on these interactions, there will be various options for dealing with climate change.

Increasing maize cultivation and changed cropping practices promote the selection of typical maize weeds that may also profit strongly from climate change. Predicting potential weed problems is of high interest for plant production. Within the project KLIFF, experiments were combined with species distribution modelling for this task in the region of Lower Saxony, Germany. For our study, we modelled ecological and damage niches of nine weed species that are significant and wide spread in maize cropping in a number of European countries. Species distribution models describe the ecological niche of a species, these are the environmental conditions under which a species can maintain a vital population. It is also possible to estimate a damage niche, i.e. the conditions under which a species causes damage in agricultural crops. For this, we combined occurrence data of European national data bases with high resolution climate, soil and land use data. Models were also projected to simulated climate conditions for the time horizon 2070 - 2100 in order to estimate climate change effects. Modelling results indicate favourable conditions for typical maize weed occurrence virtually all over the study region, but only a few species are important in maize cropping. This is in good accordance with the findings of an earlier maize weed monitoring. Reaction to changing climate conditions is species-specific, for some species neutral (E. crus-galli), other species may gain (Polygonum persicaria) or loose (Viola arvensis) large areas of suitable habitats. All species with damage potential under present conditions will remain important in maize cropping, some more species will gain regional importance (Calystegia sepium, Setara viridis).

Als Beitrag zur Sicherung der Welternährung fördert das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) unter Beteiligung des Bundesministeriums für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) seit 2013 mehrere Verbundprojekte, an welchen das Fachgebiet für Agrartechnik der Universität Kassel und das Fachgebiet Agrartechnik in den Tropen und Subtropen der Universität Hohenheim mit Forschungsarbeiten zur Verbesserung der Nutzung von Grundnahrungsmitteln in Afrika beteiligt sind. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf der Verbesserung der Nacherntetechnologie zur Vermeidung von Verlusten sowie zur Wertsteigerung durch Weiterverarbeitung. Since 2013, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is funding several joint research projects to contribute to food security. Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Group of the University of Kassel and Agricultural Engineering Tropics and Subtropics Group of the University of Hohenheim are contributing to those projects to improve the utilization of staple crops in Africa. Focus is on improvement of postharvest technology to reduce food losses and to add value by processing. Jahrbuch Agrartechnik, vol. 29Jahrbuch Agrartechnik 2017, vol. 29, 2017

Perennial grasslands play an important role as an extensive CO2 sink. Fodder and biofuels can be produced in an ecologically acceptable manner on such sites. Projected future climate-change scenarios suggest that Central Europe’s grasslands will be increasingly affected by drought. In order to determine whether there is potential for some alternative drought-adapted grass species to contribute to herbage production for either forage or biomass, we tested the agronomic performance of ten grass species (Agropyron elongatum, Agropyron intermedium, Agropyron desertorum, Agropyron trachycaulum, Elymus hoffmannii, Elymus junceus, Bromus inermis, Bromus marginatus, Festuca arundinacea and Panicum virgatum) in comparison to four reference grasses (Dactylis glomerata, Arrhenatherum elatius, Agrostis gigantea and Agropyron repens). Experiments were conducted in small-plot cutting trials at two sites across two growing seasons with either one or multiple cuts per season. In the one-cut system, P. virgatum provided the highest average annual dry matter (DM) yield (14 258 kg ha–1), followed by A. elongatum (13 086 kg ha–1). The multi-annual persistence of these two species under the experimental conditions was given only when P. virgatum was not harvested before freezing off and A. elongatum was harvested only once per year. Moreover, both species are susceptible to lodging. In the multiple-cut system, F. arundinacea showed a high yield (12 533 kg DM ha–1 average annual yield) and a low presence of associated weeds (only 0.1% surface area). Cultivating this grass species requires considering its only moderate competitiveness during the establishment phase. Based on the rapid establishment of A. trachycaulum, this species is expected to be best suited as a cover crop in seed mixtures. The yields of A. desertorum, A. trachycaulum, A. repens, E. junceus and B. marginatus were below the experimental average (9255 kg DM ha–1 at multiple cuttings). DOI: 10.5073/JfK.2014.06.01, https://doi.org/10.5073/JfK.2014.06.01

This paper describes results of ecotoxicological investigations concerning the effects of industrial pollutants on farm animals. By means of simultaneous experiments using dusts from lignite-filters and sedimentation-filters as well as sulfur dioxide (SO2) as stress models and by using studies on farm animals in pollutant-burden regions of eastern Germany it could be shown, that pollutants can lead to disorders of health, efficiency and behaviour, like o. g. heavy metals, and to contamination of food of animal origin. Dusts, resulting from combustion of lignite and SO2 initiate non specific effects in the organism and it is only difficult to determine their part on the decrease of productivity and metabolic disorder of farm animals in pollutant regions.