Table 4 Mean and (standard deviation) are reported for continuous variables.

From: Data covering soil management practices and farm characteristics on Swiss arable farms

Variable

Data Presented (Rees et al. 2025)

Official Statistics

Production System

Conventional

Integrated Production

Organic

Conventional ‡

Integrated Production ‡

Organic ‡

Wheat Yield (tonnes/ha)

6.70 (1.16)

6.10 (0.93)

4.52 (1.08)

6.62

5.92

4.27

Synthetic Fertiliser (kg N/ha) *

106.58 (38.59)

97.56 (37.58)

0 (0)

   

Organic Fertiliser (kg N/ha) *

32.47 (30.90)

36.12 (32.74)

72.73 (38.10)

   

Sowing Density (kg seed/ha)

178.76 (25.22)

180.23 (25.03)

196.98 (24.48)

160–200 L

160–200 L

180–220 L

Synthetic Crop Protection Expenditure (CHF/ha)

141.54 (83.73)

65.71 (54.11)

0 (0)

   

Milling Wheat Area Grown (ha)

6.40 (5.64)

6.07 (5.35)

4.46 (4.02)

4.53

4.23

3.25

Milling Wheat Arable Area Share (%)

25.72 (10.40)

24.39 (10.30)

21.42 (9.28)

20.51

19.78

19.75

Number of Observations (N)

660

948

374

132

189

59

  1. A table of descriptive statistics for milling wheat production per production system in Switzerland. We present this alongside the data reported by Agroscope for the central evaluation of farm performance in Switzerland in the year 2023. Within the category that we label as organic, we also include the farms that produce biodynamically under the Demeter label as data that splits organic farms into organic and biodynamic production is not available.
  2. * Note that the reference amount of Nitrogen application from all sources together for winter milling wheat with a target yield of 6 tonnes per hectare is 140 kg N/ha. If targeting a yield of 8 tonnes/ha the application may be increased by up to 20 additional kg N/ha. More specific additions and deductions are allowed on the basis of factors such as soil type and previous crop33.
  3. In general, farmers producing milling wheat under the integrated production system are allowed to apply herbicides - unless they take part in the pesticide free scheme - but are prohibited from applying fungicides, insecticides and plant growth regulators. We only included herbicides, fungicides and plant growth regulators in our calculation of crop protection expenditure using the reference costs of CHF 71, CHF 97 and CHF 56 / single treatment respectively - as used in the Agridea Deckungsbeiträge booklet 202358.
  4. The official statistics on milling wheat production are extracted from the Agroscope Betriebszweigergebnisse 2023. For making their calculations for 2023 they used a sample of 132 conventional wheat producers, 189 integrated production wheat producers and 59 organic wheat producers. Standard deviations of the estimates are not provided by Agroscope51.
  5. LRecommended application rates from the practical handbook used by farmers in Switzerland33.