Interactive tool for farmers to diversify high-latitude cereal-dominated crop rotations

Figures & data

Figure 1. The general flow chart of the developed, farm-based, interactive diversification tool for 5-year crop rotations for all the >1 million field parcels in Finland.

Table 1. The minimum cultivation areas (ha) for each crop on a farm depending on the farm size, when the lowest 10% has been excluded.

Crop	Farm size
	<30 ha	30–59 ha	60–99 ha	≥100 ha
Spring barley	1.5	4.0	5.2	14.0
Spring oats	1.2	3.1	4.2	8.6
Spring wheat (crop farms)	1.6	3.4	7.6	11.0
Spring wheat (animal farms)	1.6	3.1	5.6	8.2
Winter wheat	1.2	2.8	2.9	3.9
Winter rye (crop farms)	0.9	3.0	3.0	5.7
Winter rye (animal farms)	1.0	3.0	3.0	3.8
Rapeseed	2.5	4.3	4.9	5.5
Peas	0.5	0.5	0.5	1.0
Faba beans	0.8	3.2	3.2	3.6

Table 2. Shifts in frequencies (no.) and shares (%) of different crop species for each five-year period before and after applying the tool for 78,076 field parcels.

Crop	Before		Tool applied with sugar beet			Tool applied without sugar beet
	no.	%	no.	%	OR1	no.	%	OR1	OR2
Barley	179,450	46.0	61,399	15.7	0.22	70,439	18.0	0.26	1.18
Oats	101,798	26.1	71,374	18.3	0.63	76,582	19.6	0.69	1.09
Spring wheat	60,394	15.5	37,784	9.7	0.59	46,368	11.9	0.74	1.26
Winter rye	5479	1.4	22,967	5.9	4.39	28,960	7.4	5.63	1.28
Winter wheat	10,712	2.7	24,430	6.3	2.37	28,865	7.4	2.83	1.2
Peas	761	0.2	50,169	12.9	75.5	61,870	15.8	96.42	1.28
Faba beans	700	0.2	32,359	8.3	50.31	38,188	9.8	60.36	1.2
Rapeseed	24,332	6.2	28,429	7.3	1.18	39,108	10.0	1.67	1.42
Sugar beet^a	6754	1.7	61,469	15.7	10.62	0	0.0	0.0	0.0

^aIn addition to sugar beet, other minor crops are included in the situation before the tool estimates.

When the odds ratio (OR) is <1.0 and >1.0 the crop appears less and more frequently when the tool was applied: OR1 is compared to the situation before applying the tool and OR2 to the situation when the tool applied without sugar beet was compared to the situation with sugar beet.

Table 3. Shifts in frequencies (no.) and shares (%) of different 5-year crop rotations before and after applying the tool for 142,765 field parcels.

Rotation	Before		Tool applied with sugar beet		Tool applied without sugar beet
	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%
Cereal species monoculture	29,830	20.9	0	0.0	0	0.0
Cereal monoculture	19,006	13.3	750	0.5	3044	2.1
Break-crop	32,383	22.7	24,730	17.3	34,609	24.2
Diverse	2701	1.9	10,383	7.3	9771	6.8
More flexibly diverse			47,328	33.2	35,802	25.1
Grassland	12,189	8.5	12,159	8.5	12,159	8.5
Green fallow	21,336	14.9	21,336	14.9	21,336	14.9
Unidentified rotations	25,320	17.7	26,079	18.3	26,044	18.2

Figure 2. Current frequencies of cereal species monoculture rotations and estimated changes when the tool was applied. Each square is 10 × 10 km and when white in colour, the number of field parcels is too low (<30). The tool outcome does not differ if the farmer agrees or not to cultivate sugar beet.

Figure 3. Current frequencies of cereal monoculture rotations and estimated changes when the tool was applied. Each square is 10 × 10 km and when white in colour, the number of field parcels is too low (<30). The tool outcome does not differ if the farmer agrees or not to cultivate sugar beet.

Figure 4. Current frequencies of break-crop rotations and the estimated changes when the tool was applied. Each square is 10 × 10 km and when white in colour, the number of field parcels is too low (<30). The tool outcome is shown for two cases, in which the farmer either agrees or not to cultivate sugar beet.

Figure 5. Current frequencies of diverse rotations and the estimated changes when the tool was applied. Each square is 10 × 10 km and when white in colour, the number of field parcels is too low (<30). The tool outcome is shown in two cases, in which the farmer either agrees or not to cultivate sugar beet.

Figure 6. Frequencies of more flexibly determined diverse rotations when the tool was applied. Each square is 10 × 10 km and when white in colour, the number of field parcels is too low (<30). The tool outcome is shown in two cases, in which the farmer either agrees or not to cultivate sugar beet.

Figure 7. Current frequencies of rotations that were not changed when the tool was applied.