Abstract
The sustainability of current farming systems has been questioned in the last decades, especially in terms of the environmental impact and mitigation of global warming. Also, the organic sector, which is supposed to impact less on the environment than other more intensive systems, is looking for innovative solutions to improve its environmental sustainability. Promisingly, the integration of organic management practices with conservation agriculture techniques may help to increase environmental sustainability of food production. However, little is known about the possible impact of conservation agriculture on the content of bioactive compounds in cash crops. For this reason, a two-year rotation experiment used 7 cash crops (4 leafy vegetables and 3 fruit crops) to compare integrated (INT), organic farming (ORG), and organic no-tillage (ORG+) systems to evaluate the possible influence of cropping systems on the nutritional/nutraceutical values of the obtained fruits and leafy vegetables. The results pointed out specific responses based on the species as well as the year of cultivation. However, cultivation with the ORG+ cropping system resulted in effective obtainment of fruits and vegetables with higher levels of bioactive compounds in several cases (11 out 16 observations). The ORG+ cropping system results are particularly promising for leafy vegetable cultivation, especially when ORG+ is carried out on a multi-year basis. Aware that the obtained data should be consolidated with longer-term experiments, we conclude that this dataset may represent a good starting point to support conservation agriculture systems as a possible sustainable strategy to obtain products with higher levels of bioactive compounds.
Highlights
Environmental sustainability is the main concept which allows to respect and to preserve natural resources as well as labor capital [1,2]
A promising solution may come from the integration in organic management practices of conservation agriculture (CA) techniques, i.e., the combination between reduced soil disturbance, continuous soil cover and diversification of cropping systems according to the definition of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations [2,17]
The three cropping systems were (i) a control, represented by a standard integrated farming system (INT) based on conventional tillage practices, mechanical and chemical weed control, chemical pesticide, and mineral fertilizer use; (ii) a standard organic cropping system (ORG) built upon the same tillage practices as INT, upon mechanical weed control, upon fertilization based on commercial solid organic fertilizers and on the use of cover crops incorporated as green manures, and upon crop protection by substances and biocontrol agents admitted according to European regulations [28,29]; and (iii) an organic conservation system (ORG+) including continuous no-tillage, use of cover crops managed as living or dead mulches, reduced organic fertilizer application cultural and thermal weed control, and crop protection strategy as described for organic farming (ORG)
Summary
Environmental sustainability is the main concept which allows to respect and to preserve natural resources (soils, water, plant, and animal species) as well as labor capital [1,2]. Organic farming may lead to adverse effects on soil fertility (loss of organic carbon for excessive mineralization) and greenhouse gas emissions due to integrated tillage practices (necessary for weed control, green manuring, and soil amendment incorporation) [15,16]. For all these reasons, the sustainability of current organic management practices has been questioned recently and the organic sector is looking for innovative solutions to improve its sustainability. A promising solution may come from the integration in organic management practices of conservation agriculture (CA) techniques, i.e., the combination between reduced soil disturbance, continuous soil cover and diversification of cropping systems according to the definition of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations [2,17]
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