Fertility building strategies during the conversion period – assessment of performance in a stockless field vegetable rotation

Summary

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference of the Colloquium of Organic Researchers (COR). Nutrient off-takes, residue returns and nutrient inputs were measured during and after conversion from a conventional arable system to organic vegetables with cereals. This data was used to construct nutrient budgets to assess the effectiveness of contrasting fertility building strategies and various cropping regimes. The effect of placing the cereal crops in different places in the crop sequence was also considered.