Gestió dels sistemes hortícoles ecològics a europa mitjançant la introducció de cultius amb serveis agroecològics i la seva gestió amb el roller cimper

Resumen

The introduction of agroecological services crops (ASC) in crop rotations is a widely recognised strategy for improving the environmental performance of cropping systems. Nevertheless, several authors have highlighted that the environmental and agronomic performance of ASC depends on the management strategy used to terminate them. Traditionally, European organic farmers have managed ASC as green manure (T-GM). However, in recent years, the use of the roller crimper (NT-RC) for ASC management has attracted the interest of European farmers and researchers, because it flattens the ASC creating a dense layer of plant residue on the soil surface without soil disturbance. The few studies performed in European vegetable systems, mainly developed in Italy, have analysed the effect of the ASC management by the NT-RC on weed abundance, crop yield and energy balances. Thus, most studies have been conducted under the particular conditions of specific experimental sites, which may have influenced the findings In order to fill this knowledge gap, this PhD combined results obtained over a two year period from organic vegetable field trials located in different European countries. The support for a common effect of NT-RC across trials was tested by means of a meta-analytic approach based on a weighted version of the Stouffer’s method. Our results indicate that ASC inclusion and management required, on average, a 19.73 % higher energy input investment than systems that did not include them. Nevertheless, ASC management strategies were more prone to increase the energy that potentially could be recycled within the cropping system. The NT-RC reduced the marketable production efficiency relative to T-GM, but improved the environmental performance by increasing the potential energy that can be recycled within the cropping system. Weed density was reduced under NT-RC by 35.1 % on average in comparison to T-GM. Moreover, we documented a significant reduction of weed species richness under NT-RC, and significant but, in general, minor changes in the weed community composition across the trials. Furthermore, NT-RC enhanced the activity density of ground and rove beetles across different pedo-climatic conditions in Europe. However, NT-RC decreased the cash crop yield and quality, and the activity density of spiders.