About SITES Lönnstorp

Last changed: 22 August 2024

The research station is situated in a periurban area east of Lomma between the E6/E20 motorway and the Södra stambanan railway. The land that belongs to the station consists of a conventionally farmed area (60 ha at the station) and an area converted to certified organic farming in 1993 (18 ha at the Alnarp campus). The research station was established in 1969 and is currently used mainly by researchers at SLU, but also by other organisations and commercial companies.

There is a large number of on-going experiments at Lönnstorp, of which several are long-term. The SITES Agroecological Field Experiment (SAFE), a new large facility for research on future cropping systems, was established in 2015-2016. The facility is available for many types of studies, within for example plant and soil ecology, biogeochemistry and agroecology, and it is possible to establish smaller experiments within the facility.

If you want to use the SITES Lönnstorp research station, just contact the station manager Johannes Albertsson (see contact information below). After an initial discussion, an experimental plan is submitted via the following web form https://arcg.is/1O9Wvj

 

The Lönnstorp Research Station belongs to the Department of Biosystems and Technology at SLU in Alnarp, but is also part of The Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science (SITES), a research infrastructure funded by the Swedish Research Council. The SITES network consists of nine Swedish field research stations in different terrestrial and limnic ecosystems and the Lönnstorp and Röbäcksdalen research stations represent the agricultural ecosystems. The aim of SITES is to contribute to long-term, field-based ecosystem research at world-class level and the infrastructure will be accessible for researchers on equal terms, regardless of the institution of the researcher. The work within SITES will involve investments in different kinds of user support for researchers, such as research facilities, technical competence and a common database system.

Facts:

  • Main rotation on the 60ha conventionally farmed area:
    winter wheat – sugar beets – spring barley – winter oilseed rape.
  • Rotation on the 18ha organically farmed area (certified by KRAV):
    Spring wheat with undersown lucerne/grass mixture - Lucerne/grass ley – Winter oilseed rape – Winter wheat with undersown lucerne/grass mixture - Lucerne/grass ley – Faba bean intercropped with barley
  • Four systems on the 14ha SAFE experimental facility:
    Perennial cereal, Agroecological intensification, Organic, Conventional
  • The soil type is a loam with about 15 % clay and 3 % organic material