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Designing cover crop mixtures to enhance potential weed suppression in organic no-till vegetable systems

Ranaldo, Marzia; Carlesi, Stefano; Costanzo, Ambrogio and Bàrberi, Paolo (2016) Designing cover crop mixtures to enhance potential weed suppression in organic no-till vegetable systems. Speech at: ESA 14 - Growing landscapes - Cultivating innovative agricultural systems, Edinburgh, 5-9 September 2016.

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Summary

Cover crops play a key role in weed management strategy in no-till organic and low input vegetable systems. The ability of cover crops to reduce weed pressure can be linked to the amount of biomass produced at the time of cover crop devitalisation. Cover crop mixtures, in particular functional diversity in cover crop mixtures, can be managed to improve biomass production and weed suppressive ability of cover crops. We tested eight cover crop species pure stands and designed nine cover crop mixtures at increasing levels of functional diversity. The aim of this study was to highlight the effect of cover crops' functional diversity in controlling weeds before aubergine (Solanum melongena L.) transplanting. We showed that the functional composition (i.e. the presence of complementary cover crop species functional traits in mixtures) of cover crop mixtures is key to provide high biomass productivity and weed suppression.


EPrint Type:Conference paper, poster, etc.
Type of presentation:Speech
Subjects: Crop husbandry > Crop combinations and interactions
Crop husbandry > Composting and manuring
Crop husbandry > Weed management
Research affiliation: European Union > CORE Organic Plus > FertilCrop
Italy > Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa
Horizon Europe or H2020 Grant Agreement Number:618107
Deposited By: Ranaldo, Ms Marzia
ID Code:32798
Deposited On:19 Mar 2018 09:30
Last Modified:26 Mar 2018 09:36
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

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