#fertiliser use

Using high levels of common fertilisers on grassland halves pollinator numbers and drastically reduces the number of flowers, research from the world’s longest-running ecological experiment has found. Increasing the amount of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus doused on agricultural grassland reduced flower numbers fivefold and halved the number of pollinating insects, according to the paper by the University of Sussex and Rothamsted Research. Bees were most affected – there were over nine times more of them in chemical-free plots compared with those with the highest levels of fertiliser, according to the paper, published in the journal npj Biodiversity. The lead researcher, Sussex University’s Dr Nicholas Balfour, said: “As you increase fertilisers, pollinator numbers decrease – that’s the direct link that​ to our knowledge has never been shown before. “It’s having a drastic effect on flowers and insects. The knock-on effect goes right up the food chain,” he said. This is primarily because fertilisers create conditions that allow fast-growing grasses to dominate, crowding out other grasses and flowers. It is generally assumed that having a greater diversity of flowers leads to a greater diversity of pollinators, which often have specialist requirements in terms of the blooms they like to visit.

Languages: Deutsch

This week, Germany must report the nitrate levels of its groundwater to the European Commission. According to media reports, the trend is slightly positive but even the Commission admits that a comparison with other EU countries is difficult. EURACTIV Germany reports.

The Federal Environment Ministry had to submit its annual nitrate report to the Commission on Tuesday (30 June).

As the online magazine agrarheute reported from its own sources, the nitrate pollution of German groundwater has improved only very slightly: According to the report, 26.7% of the monitoring stations were above 50 mg nitrate per litre, the value required by the EU Nitrate Directive. This is still 1.5% less than in 2016.

The Commission took Germany to court in 2016 as it considered that no sufficient political measures had been taken to curb the nitrate readings, which had been too high for years.

In 2018, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in favour of the Commission, threatening Germany with extremely high fines of €750,000 per day unless changes to the fertiliser ordinance were made as quickly as possible. The application of fertilisers is considered the most important factor affecting nitrate levels in groundwater.