Sabina Braun

I am an soil/plant agronomist from the beginning, and have a PhD in Soil Chemistry. I have been working at SLU since 2015. My current main job is as head of the Agricultural Field Research Program.

The Agricultural Field Research Program aims to promote and support SLU's research infrastructures for agricultural field research, which includes the following units:

• SLU's four field research stations in Röbäcksdalen (Umeå), Lövsta (Uppsala), Lanna (Skara), and Lönnstorp (Alnarp)
• SLU Long-term Agricultural Trials
• SLU Variety Testing
• SLU Field Research
• Ultuna Bioclimatic Station.

My work includes developing common procedures for data management and quality assurance, supporting recruitment and skills development, increasing the visibility and impact of agricultural field research in society, and ensuring that our infrastructures are easy for researchers to use.

I am located at Campus Alnarp.

My research focuses primarily on the plant nutrient phosphorus and how it behaves in the soil. I often work with data and samples from our long-term trials, where we can track how different cultivation methods and fertilization levels affect soil productivity and properties. These changes often occur very slowly, but are important to understand in order to design agriculture that is as sustainable as possible. I am also interested in the interaction between phosphorus and carbon in the soil, and in applied research concerning, for example, best practices for liming and fertilization.

I teach soil chemistry in the Landscape Architecture (Uppsala), Agronomy/Plant Science, and Horticultural Engineering (Alnarp) programs. In addition to this, I regularly supervise students' individual projects.  

Teaching in Higher Education, basic course (2024)

Pold, G., MacDonald, E., Braun, S., & Herrmann, A. M. (2025). Soil and vegetation property data from the Ultuna R3-RAM56 long-term soil amendment experiment, 1956-2023. Data in Brief, 111350. 
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2025.111350 

Gustafsson, J. P., Barbi, F., Braun, S., Klysubun, W., & Börjesson, G. (2023). Where does all the 
phosphorus go? Mass balance modelling of phosphorus in the Swedish long-term soil fertility experiments. Geoderma, 440, 116727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2023.116727 

Spohn, M., Braun, S., & Sierra, C. A. (2023). Continuous decrease in soil organic matter despite increased plant productivity in an 80-years-old phosphorus-addition experiment. Communications earth & environment, 4(1), 251. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00915-1 

Braun, S. (2020). Long-term phosphorus supply in agricultural soils. Size and dynamics of fast- and slow-desorbing phosphorus pools. PhD thesis, Department of Soil and Environment, the Swedish 
University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala. 

Braun, S., McLaren, T., Frossard, E., Tuyishime, J. R. M., Börjesson, G., Gustafsson, J. P. (2020). 
Phosphorus desorption and isotope exchange kinetics in agricultural soils. Soil Use and Management. 
https://doi.org/10.1111/sum.12674 

Gustafsson, J. P., Braun, S., Tuyishime, J. R., Adediran, G. A., Warrinnier, R., & Hesterberg, D. (2020).  A Probabilistic Approach to Phosphorus Speciation of Soils Using P K-edge XANES Spectroscopy with Linear Combination Fitting. Soil Systems, 4, p. 26. https://doi.org/10.3390/soilsystems4020026 

Braun, S., Warrinnier, R., Börjesson, G., Ulén, B., Smolders, E. & Gustafsson, J.P. (2019). Assessing the ability of soil tests to estimate labile phosphorus in agricultural soils: evidence from isotopic exchange. Geoderma 337, p. 350-358 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2018.09.048