Organic conservation agriculture struggles to reconcile weed management and permanent soil cover, which should be at least 30 % according to conservation agriculture. This raises the question of what trade-offs are possible between the three principles of conservation agriculture (soil dormancy, soil cover and plant species diversity) and the requirements of organic agriculture, so that tillage and soil cover, as well as rotation, can effectively achieve the soil quality objectives.
This project proposes to analyse various soil quality parameters in a network of on-farm plots in organic conservation agriculture, which are to be linked to cropping practices and interpreted in terms of services rendered. The observations concern soil life (microorganisms, earthworms, weed flora), organic matter and its labile fraction, and structural stability. They focus on the first centimetres of the soil, which are the most exposed to cultivation practices, and follow their evolution over a period of three years following grassland, the importance of which is to be better understood in relation to the organic conservation agriculture practices in terms of soil regeneration.
The project should make it possible to reconcile weeds and soil quality in order to allow a wider deployment of the new techniques of organic conservation agriculture in practice and to benefit from its multiple advantages. It should also allow progress to be made on erosion in herbicide-free systems.
Project coordination
