LARGE-SCALE FARMING BENEFITS SOIL ACIDIFICATION ALLEVIATION THROUGH IMPROVED FIELD MANAGEMENT IN BANANA PLANTATIONS

Highlights

● Large farms had the highest average yield and the least yield variation.

● Greater plant density and optimized nutrient input occurred on large farms.

● Substituting organic N for mineral fertilizers prevented soil acidification.

● Large-scale farming had lower soil acidification but higher risk of P losses.

● Large-scale farming benefits sustainable soil management and banana production.

Abstract

Large-scale farming by agricultural land transfers has been increasingly promoted in recent years, but the possible impacts on crop production, especially cash crops, and soil acidification remain unclear. This study obtained data for 110 banana plantations in Long’an County, China, and categorized them into small (< 0.67 ha), medium (0.67−6.7 ha), and large (> 6.7 ha) to determine banana cultivation, nutrient management, and soil acidification rates on farms of the three sizes. Banana yield per unit area significantly increased with increased farm size, and large farms had the highest average yield (48.9 t·ha⁻¹) with the least variation. Despite a significant increase in organic fertilizer and base cation inputs, nitrogen (N) surplus did not differ significantly with increasing farm size. With large farms, actual soil acidification rate was significantly lower by 19.1 to 24.0 keq·ha⁻¹·yr⁻¹; however, potential soil acidification rate increased with increased overuse of phosphorus. Overall, larger banana plantations used fewer mineral N fertilizers reducing the rate of soil acidification and increasing the H⁺ buffering provided by organic fertilizers. It is concluded that larger farms deliver the dual benefits of higher, less variable banana yield and mitigation of soil acidification by substituting organic N for mineral N fertilizers, supporting sustainable soil management and food production.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

plantations / land transfer / large-scale farming / nutrient management / soil acidification

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2022475 contains supplementary materials (Fig. S1; Table S1).

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by Major Science and Technology Project of Yunnan Province (202102AE090053-2), National Natural Science Youth Foundation of China (41907142) and Natural Science Foundation of Hainan Province (422MS095). We thank our colleagues Xiaodong Chen and Yuqian Suo for their efforts on the farm survey. We thank Guangxi Jinsui Ecological Technology Group Co., Ltd. for the support in data collection.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Donghao Xu, Jiangzhou Zhang, Yajuan Li, Shiyang Li, Siyang Ren, Yuan Feng, Qichao Zhu, and Fusuo Zhang declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. All applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2022. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)