Topic
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.
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TL;DR: In this paper, an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed in China to investigate environmental consequences of the life cycle of pears in terms of fossil energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
106 citations
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TL;DR: Correlation analysis between microbial OTUs relative abundance and ecosystem functions suggest that eukarya play a major role, compared to bacteria, in controlling plant growth and organic carbon cycling.
Abstract: Cultivation of vegetables under plastic tunnels is a steadily growing farming system in the agricultural sector but raises concerns about its environmental sustainability. The aim of the present work was to assess the impact of organic farming, compared to conventional cultivation, on agro-ecosystem functions and soil microbial communities. Two farms that practiced organic cultivation for 10 and 20 years were compared with one conventional farm, all with cultivations under plastic tunnel. Soil functions were assessed with multi-species bioassays on plant growth and organic matter decomposition, and microbial communities were characterized by high-throughput sequencing of bacterial and eukaryotic rRNA gene markers. Plant growth and organic matter decomposition were higher in organic compared to conventionally management soils. Agronomical practices showed a significant effect on microbial diversity and composition. Soil bacterial diversity was lower in both organic farms than in the conventional farm. Soil eukaryotic diversity was slightly higher in the 10-year organic farm but lower in the 20-year organic farm compared to the conventional farm. At phylum level, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, and TM7 were higher, while Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, and Actinobacteria were lower in organic-farmed soils compared to conventional farm. Noteworthy, Metazoa raised from 0.1% of eukarya relative abundance in conventional-farmed to 20.9% in 20 year organic-farmed soil. Correlation analysis between microbial OTUs relative abundance and ecosystem functions suggest that eukarya play a major role, compared to bacteria, in controlling plant growth and organic carbon cycling. Integration of microbial diversity data with plant growth and decomposition of organic matter decomposition allowed us to provide a linkage between agricultural management, microbial community composition, and soil functionality.
106 citations
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TL;DR: A comparative survey of weed vegetation in organic and conventional dryland winter cereal fields was performed in central Catalonia (NE Spain) in order to assess the effects of agricultural intensification on the diversity, structure and composition of weed communities.
105 citations
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TL;DR: During the summer sampling period, organic farms had significantly greater numbers of carabids captured in pitfall traps in 3 of 4 pairs, and organic farms also had approximately the same level of diversity as measured by the Shannon-Wiener index.
Abstract: The abundance of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) was compared on 4 pairs of conventional and organic farms. All farms compared had identical locations, soil types, and cropping histories, but differed in that one farm in each pair was conventionally managed; the other, organically (no use of commercial fertilizers or pesticides). During the summer sampling period, organic farms had significantly greater numbers of carabids captured in pitfall traps in 3 of 4 pairs. Differences in abundance during this time ranged from 20 percent to almost 7-times greater on organic farms. Organic farms also had about twice the number of species found on conventional farms, but had approximately the same level of diversity as measured by the Shannon-Wiener index.
105 citations
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105 citations