Common Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare L.) Growth on Sandy Soil—Insights from a Pot Experiment

Abstract

The cultivation of perennial flowering wild plant species like common tansy (Tanacetum vulgare L.) seems promising for increasing biodiversity friendliness in rather monotonous bioenergy cropping systems in Central Europe, particularly on marginal sites. However, it is still unclear for which types of marginal agricultural land common tansy would be suitable and where; as a result, low-risk indirect land-use change biomass production through common tansy could be considered. Therefore, the aim of this study was to gather initial insights into the suitability of common tansy for sandy sites by means of a 6 L-pot experiment. For this purpose, five replicates of three substrates were prepared: Luvisol topsoil (control) from a field site near the University of Hohenheim, Germany; and admixtures of 50 and 83.4weight(wt)% of sand to the control (M1, and M2), respectively. This resulted in varying sand contents of the substrates of 4.7 (control), 53.3 (M1), and 83.0wt% (M2). In autumn 2021, common tansy seeds were collected from mother plants bearing the breeder’s indentifier ‘Z.8TAV 85/78’. These plants were part of a long-term field trial initiated at Hohenheim in 2014, where common tansy was grown as part of a wild plant mixture. In June 2022, 0.5 g of the seeds were sown in each pot. The pots were placed in outdoor conditions, arranged in a randomized complete block design and watered evenly as required. At harvest in July 2023, significant differences between the substrates in terms of the above- (shoots) and belowground (roots) development of the common tansy seedlings were observed. In M1, common tansy provided notable biomass growth of 56.6% of the control, proving to be potentially suitable for low-input cultivation under sandy soil conditions. However, an even higher share of sand and low nutrient contents in M2 resulted in minor plant development (14.4% of the control). Hence, field trials on sandy soils of about 50wt% of sand in the texture under tailored fertilization and various climatic conditions are recommended.