EU-Projekt OSCAR: Optimierung von Lebendmulchen, neuen Zwischenfrüchten, Minimalbodenbearbeitung und Wissenstransfer

Summary

The EU project OSCAR (“Optimising Subsidiary Crop Applications in Rotations” [http://www.oscar-covercrops.eu]) aims to achieve comprehensive advances in conservation agriculture to improve sustainability of low-input, organic, and conventional farming systems. The research integrates living mulches, dead mulches, or cover crops with the main crops in rotations so as to simultaneously improve crop nutrition, health, and productivity. Coordinated field experiments in addition to three long-term experiments take place in different climatic regions in Europe and Brazil. Economic and ecological impacts including legume root health will be investigated. Private breeders and manufacturers of agricultural equipment are involved in finding adapted solutions by extending the range of potentially useful plant species and by developing appropriate machinery. The potential for useful chemical extraction from the subsidiary crops will also be studied. A central project deliverable is a database supported Decision Support Tool for multilingual stakeholder exchange and dissemination.