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Decreasing phosphorus (P) concentrations in leaves of beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) across Europe raise the question about the implications for forest health. Considering the distribution of beech forests on soils encompassing a broad range of nutrient availability, we hypothesized that this tree species exhibits high phenotypic plasticity allowing it to alter mass, and nutrient allocation in response to local nutrient availability. To test this, we grew two groups of 12–15 year old beech saplings originating from sites with high and low soil P availability for 2 years in mineral soil from their own site and in soil from the other site. After two growing seasons, P concentrations in leaves and stem, as well as mass allocation to leaves and fine roots were affected by both soil and plant origin. By contrast, relative P allocation to leaves and fine roots, as well as P concentrations in fine roots, were determined almost entirely by the experimental soil. Independent of the P nutritional status defined as average concentration of P in the whole plant, which still clearly reflected the soil conditions at the site of plant origin, relative P allocation to leaves was a particularly good indicator of P availability in the experimental soil. Furthermore, a high plasticity of this plant trait was indicated by a large difference between plants growing in the two experimental soils. This suggests a strong ability of beech to alter resource allocation in response to specific soil conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we used LCA to test the influence of practicing low-input farming, on-farm processing and direct distribution on the environmental impact of bread consumption. Primary data were collected from four commercially active producers (two in France, one in Italy and one in Portugal) who cultivate cereals under low levels of inputs, process grains on farm and distribute their products directly to end consumers. Environmental impacts of products were compared to equivalents from supermarkets, characterised by higher rates of applied inputs at the agricultural stage, industrial processing and centralised distribution. The scope of LCA was from cradle to the consumer. The study revealed a high variability of results between individual cases. At the agricultural stage, products from a low-input cropping system integrated with livestock production in France and from a small-scale labour intensive production in Portugal showed similar or better performance on most impact categories to those from high-input agriculture, while horse farming in France and a stockless cultivation of ancient wheat cultivars in Italy revealed mostly higher environmental burdens. Decentralised processing and distribution in France had similar or slightly higher impacts to conventional supply chains, while Italian and Portuguese cases revealed clearly higher environmental burdens for most impact categories. Results demonstrate that while there might be a positive relationship between the scale and eco-efficiency of processing and distribution, the level of agricultural inputs, yields and transport distances cannot be used as proxies of environmental performance. Products of low-input systems can have much higher, similar or lower impacts to their high-input counterparts due to the influence of site conditions and the management. More research assessing the effectiveness of context-specific management systems is needed as oppose to the generic comparisons between labelling schemes (i.e. organic and conventional farming). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]