Fertilcrop - How to build additional soil fertility in organic cropping systems

Summary

The project FertilCrop will address sustainable crop management techniques that will make efficient use of the interface to other plants, to the structured and stratified soil matrix, to beneficial microorganisms, and to the carbon and nitrogen cycle. The project targets organic farmers and will work in close collaboration with them in developing tools and decision support systems tailored to their needs. Participants of the project come from 12 European countries from research fields of agronomy, biology, crop sciences, soil sciences, microbiology, modelling and social sciences and experience in direct exchange with farmers and their organisations. The project builds on the network and findings of the previous TILMAN-ORG project, in which half of the project partners were participating. The previous project built on numerous field trials and farm networks on reduced tillage and green manures, which will be used again in FertilCrop, enriched with field studies from new partners. The focus of FertilCrop are farming systems using reduced soil tillage, cover crops, adapted crop rotations, and mixed cropping as well as orchards.
Thematic work packages will
• address the competition weeds in crop stands,
• look at the physical properties of stratified soils that accumulate organic matter in top soil layers but often show compaction in the deeper horizons,
• address the distribution of soil organisms along the soil profile and their influence on soil functions,
• provide a review on the knowledge about nutrient losses to the aquatic environment and the atmosphere, and
• model the reduction of emissions and soil carbon sequestration.
FertilCrop will develop tools with and for farmers to recognise good soil fertility and will develop in an iterative way decision support systems to optimise management strategies. The results will directly find their way into farming practice as farmers will be included in the project.