The arable vegetation of Baltic organic cereal fields as shaped by crop management

Summary

Weeds remain to be the main challenge within this agricultural system, especially perennials in the north European realm. Because of increased interest in agrobiodiversity functioning, weeds should be kept within manageable limits, while on the other side encourage a specie rich weed flora. One of the PRODIVA project objectives is to investigate to which extent these two aspects can be addressed through the use of diversified crop management. In order to research this objective, weed and management data were obtained from organic farms in the baltic region over the course of two years (2015-2016) in spring sown cereal crops. The impact of the local environment and management factors on the occurring weed communities was studied in multivariate analysis approaches, followed by the separate crop diversity effects. We plan to present results of the analyses of this data.