What will long-term experiments deliver? Key results of 12 experiments on different continents.

Summary

Twelve long-term experiments have been used to describe the main management effects of organic farming systems. The experiments were mostly used to compare various types of organic and conventional cropping systems, or to study fertilisation effects. The multi-year perspective was particularly important to reveal that soil biological parameters developed better and crop yields declined less under poor growth conditions in the organic treatments. Improved co-operation of researchers involved in long-term experiments is now occurring and this will lead to more effective use of data.