How to improve crop management in organic horticulture

The use of roller crimper contributes to improve the performance of the agroecological cropss. Photo: David Navarro-Miró - Sowing crops with agroeconomical services, that is, with benefits for the global ecosystem in crop practices is an efficient strategy for improving environmental sustainability. Now, an international study reveals that the uses of the technique called roller crimper —creating a layer of plant waste in the crop surface without perturbing the soil— contributes to improve the performance of the agroecological crops, reduces the environmental impact and protects the biodiversity in the environment. The article, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology , is coordinated by Professor Francesc Xavier Sans, head of the Research Group of Ecology of Agricultural Systems, member of the Faculty of Biology and director of the Biodiversity Research Institute ( IRBio ) of the UB. This multidisciplinary study analyses for the first time the agronomic, ecologic and environmental impact of the introduction of technological innovations in the management of the European ecological crop systems, in order to deal with the environmental and agronomic challenges of crop activities and offer innovative solutions to the agricultural sector as well as to managers and policy-makers. The study, whose first author if the expert David Navarro-Miró (UB-IRBio), goes over the results obtained by fifteen research groups in eleven experiments conducted in ecological crop systems as part of the SoilVeg project, funded by the EU ERA-Net CORE Organic Plus program.