Journal
AGRONOMY-BASEL
Volume 9, Issue 12, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/agronomy9120810
Keywords
sustainable agriculture; climate change mitigation; cabbage; fennel; lettuce; cover crops; green manure; no-till; dead mulch; living mulch; Mediterranean climate
Categories
Funding
- Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) within the program FIRB-2013 (Future in Research)
- MIUR-FIRB13 [RBFR13L8J6]
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Organic farming systems are considered not compatible with conservation tillage mainly because of the reliance of conservative systems on herbicides. In this three-year field experiment, we tested the performances of an innovative vegetable organic and conservative system (ORG+) combining the use of cover crops (exploited as either living or dead mulch) and no-till techniques. This system was compared to business-as-usual organic farming (ORG) and integrated farming system (INT) based on the same crop sequence: savoy cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. sabauda L. cv. Famosa), spring lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. cv. Justine), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill. Cv. Montebianco), and summer lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. cv. Ballerina RZ). The results of crop yield parameters and weed abundance contribute to spotlight potentialities and weaknesses of organic-conservative management of field vegetables. In particular, ORG+ caused significant yield depletion for all the crops and revealed suboptimal weed control and N availability. The agroecosystem services provided by the cover crops grown in the ORG+ as dead mulch or living mulch were affected by weather conditions and not always resulted in significant crop gain. Nevertheless, interesting results in terms of P availability and reduced N surplus encourage further development of the system targeting more sustainable organic vegetable production.
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