Organic farming

About: Organic farming is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 7254 publications have been published within this topic receiving 138030 citations. The topic is also known as: pertanian organik & organic farming.

Production Risk and Technical Efficiency in Organic and Conventional Agriculture – The Case of Arable Farms in Germany

Abstract: This paper quantifies the importance of production risk and technical efficiency as two possible sources of production variability in German organic and conventional farming. Determinants of production risk and inefficiency are investigated based on a combination of Just and Pope’s stochastic production framework and a Stochastic Frontier Analysis. The empirical analysis is conducted using a balanced panel of farm records from 1999/2000 to 2006/2007 on 37 organic and conventional arable farms, respectively. Euclidian-Distance-Matching is used to identify for each organic farm a conventional counterpart with similar structural features. Results indicate that output variability in both production technologies is mainly caused by production risk. Land and labour are identified as risk-increasing inputs in both farm types whereas higher capital endowment, seed costs and soil quality have risk-reducing effects.

Potato brown rot incidence and severity under different management and amendment regimes in different soil types

Abstract: Ralstonia solanacearum race 3 biovar 2, the causative agent of potato brown rot (bacterial wilt), is an economically important disease in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world. In view of previous reports on suppression of the disease by organic amendments, and the expansion of organic agriculture, it was timely to compare the effects of organic and conventional management and various amendments on brown rot development in different soils (type: sand or clay; origin: Egypt or the Netherlands). Brown rot infection was only slightly reduced in organically compared to conventionally managed sandy soils from Egypt, but organic management significantly increased disease incidence and pathogen survival in Dutch sandy and clay soils, which correlated with high DOC contents in the organic Dutch soils. There was no correlation between disease incidence or severity and bacterial diversity in the potato rhizosphere in differently managed soils (as determined by 16S DGGE). NPK fertilization reduced bacterial wilt in conventional Egyptian soils but not in Dutch soils. Cow manure amendment significantly reduced disease incidence in organic Dutch sandy soils, but did not affect the bacterial population. However, cow manure did reduce densities of R. solanacearum in Egyptian sandy soils, most probably by microbial competition as a clear shift in populations was detected with DGGE in these and Dutch sandy soils after manure amendment. Amendment with compost did not have a suppressive effect in any soil type. The absence of a disease suppressive effect of mineral and organic fertilization in Dutch clay soils may be related to the already high availability of inorganic and organic nutrients in these soils. This study shows that the mechanism of disease suppression of soil-borne plant pathogens may vary strongly according to the soil type, especially if quite different types of soil are used.

Pea green manure management affects organic winter wheat yield and quality in semiarid Montana

Abstract: Miller, P. R., Lighthiser, E. J., Jones, C. A., Holmes, J. A., Rick, T. L. and Wraith, J. M. 2011. Pea green manure management affects organic winter wheat yield and quality in semiarid Montana. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 497–508. Organic farmers in semiarid Montana desire green manures that supply sufficient soil nitrate-N (NO3-N) to subsequent crops with minimal soil water depletion. Spring and winter pea (Pisum sativum L.) green manures were compared at the bloom and pod stages for soil NO3-N contribution and water use, and subsequent winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain yield and quality in a long-term organic farm in northern Montana. Winter wheat was managed with three additional variables (cultivar, row spacing, and seeding rate). Winter pea had 15–33 kg ha−1 greater shoot N content (at pod stage only), contributed 14–20 kg ha−1 greater soil NO3-N, used 26–31 mm less soil water, and increased winter wheat grain yield by 13–39% and protein by 1.5 percentage units (2007 only), compared with spring p...

Enhancing Yields in Organic Crop Production by Eco-Functional Intensification

Abstract: Organic agriculture faces challenges to enhance food production per unit area and simultaneously reduce the environmental and climate impacts, e.g. nitrate leaching per unit area and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit mass produced. Eco-functional intensification is suggested as a means to reach these objectives. Eco-functional intensification involves activating more knowledge and refocusing the importance of ecosystem services in agriculture. Organic farmers manage agrobiodiversity by crop rotation (diversification in time). However, sole cropping (SC) of genetically identical plants in organic agriculture may limit resource use efficiency and yield per unit area. Intercropping (IC) of annual grain species, cultivar mixes, perennial grains, or forage species and forestry and annual crops (agroforestry) are examples of spatial crop diversification. Intercropping is based on eco-functional intensification and may enhance production by complementarity in resource use in time and space. Intercropping is based on the ecological principles of competition, facilitation and complementarity, which often increases the efficiency in acquisition and use of resources such as light, water and nutrients compared to sole crops, especially in low-input systems. Here we show that IC of cereals and grain legumes in European arable organic farming systems is an efficient tool for enhancing total grain yields compared to their respective sole crops. Simultaneously, we display how intercropping of cereals and legumes can be used as an efficient tool for weed management and to enhance product quality (i.e. cereal grain protein concentration). We discuss how intercropping contributes to efficient use of soil N sources and minimizes losses of N by nitrate leaching via Ecological Precision Farming. It is concluded that intercropping has a strong potential to increase yield and hereby reduce global climate impacts such as GHG kg -1 grain. Finally, we discuss likely barriers and lock-in effects for increased use of intercropping in organic farming and suggest a roadmap for innovation and implementation of IC strategies in organic agriculture.