Manuel González de Molina, Roberto García-Ruiz, David Soto Fernández, Gloria Guzmán Casado, Antonio Herrera González de Molina, Juan Infante Amate Universidad Pablo de Olavide Universidad de Jaén Centro de Investigación y Formación en Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural Nutrient Balances and Management of Soil Fertility in Andalusia, Spain (18th and 19th centuries)

 The stability of the crops and the sustainability of the development and specialization of agricultural production in the Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries depended, after centuries of continuous cultivation, on an adequate replenishment of the soil fertility. In eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Mediterranean agricultures, the soil fertility replacement was a critical factor for the long-term stability of the harvest and for the territorial equilibrium required in the organic based agriculture..- How was the nutrient replacement strategies?.- What was the importance of the replenishment of fertility on the beginning of the socio-ecologic transition of the agrarian metabolism toward its industrialisation?.- What can we learn about these strategies?.- What can we import of these strategies for the current organic agriculture?

LOCATION OF CASE STUDIES SpainAndalucía Córdoba, Sevilla, Granada

Total cropland Grain & fallow Intensive rotations Olive & vineyards LAND USE DISTRIBUTION FOR MONTEFRÍO

Montefrío

Surplus manure

RAINFALL (N, P & K) Meteorisation (N, P & K) Symbiotic and non symbiotic N fixation (N) Organic fertilisation (N, P & K) Seeds (N, P & K) Yield (N, P & K) Soil loss (N, P & K) Lixiviation (N) Denitrification (N) Ammonia volatisation (N) Historic records Scientfic review Experiments Estimative Experiments & historic records Current model MNERALISATION OUTPUTS INPUTS Historic records Historic records Estimative Current model Crops & Rotations 1752, 1858 & 1897 Methodological consideration of the nutrient balances Irrrigation (N, P & K)

Years from which the deficit of N, P and K might begin to affects the crops NPK Crop/ rotation “Ruedos” One third rotation Olive groves Vineyards “--“: positive balance

Specific conclusions  The presence of fallow and the low yields can be interpreted as an adaptive strategy of farmers to provide their crops with the necessary long term stability.  Increases in the demand and in population pressured the agroecosystems causing the breakage of the territorial balance. A decline in the size of livestock causes net reduction in their ability to fertilise.  At the end of nineteenth century the intensification of the crops and rotations which were not fertilised was based on the extraction of nutrients from the soil reservoir. There were a less intensive management of some of the crops and a stagnation in production per capita.  The magnitude of the deficits of the balance for the vineyards and olive groves was in conflict with the sustainability of the woody specialization, which has been proposed as one of the plausible strategy of the agrarian growth during the nineteenth century.

 Our study confirms that the replacement of the soil fertility has become a key factor in the sustainability of agrarian metabolism based on organic energy.  The agrarian crisis at the end of nineteenth century should be explained not only by the entry of cheap grain in Europe, but also by the friction of two types of farming systems with different mechanisms for the replacement of the soil fertility. The land cost of the European agriculture, and specially the Mediterranean, were higher than that of the American and Australian agricultures.  The relative scarcity of nutrients, exacerbated by the failure of the territorial equilibrium resulting from the rise of the agrarian production during the nineteenth century in Europe, is one of the major reasons which caused the crisis and began the agrarian socio-ecological transition. General and extended conclusions

Available Yield Human demand Animal demand Pasture Exportable

Animal demand Available Yield Human demand Exportable