Dataset Information

Weed Functional Diversity as Affected by Agroecological Service Crops and No-Till in a Mediterranean Organic Vegetable System.

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the effect of agroecological service crops (ASCs), i.e., crops included in the crop rotation for their ecosystem services, terminated with an in-line tillage roller crimper (ILRC) on weed community composition and their functional traits in comparison to a tilled control without ASC. A two-year study was performed in a long-term experiment with vegetables under organic management. Four different cereal crops were introduced as ASCs. Weed abundance and richness and the functional traits were assessed at three different stages, i.e., before and after ASC termination and before harvest of the following crop, melon. All the ASCs showed strong weed suppression, with few differences between the cereals tested. Weed communities with ASCs had later flowering onset and wider flowering span compared to the control, which positively affects weed dispersal and attraction of beneficial insects. However, weed communities with ASCs had higher values for traits related to competition (specific leaf area, seed weight and more perennials). A trade-off between weed suppression and selection of more competitive weed communities by the introduction of ASCs managed with the ILRC should be evaluated in the long-run. The use of the ILRC alternating with other soil management practices seems the more effective strategy to benefit from the minimal soil tillage while avoiding the selection of disservice-related traits in the weed community.

SUBMITTER: Ciaccia C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7356168 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Weed Functional Diversity as Affected by Agroecological Service Crops and No-Till in a Mediterranean Organic Vegetable System.

Ciaccia Corrado C Armengot Martinez Laura L Testani Elena E Leteo Fabrizio F Campanelli Gabriele G Trinchera Alessandra A

Plants (Basel, Switzerland) 20200528 6

This paper explores the effect of agroecological service crops (ASCs), i.e., crops included in the crop rotation for their ecosystem services, terminated with an in-line tillage roller crimper (ILRC) on weed community composition and their functional traits in comparison to a tilled control without ASC. A two-year study was performed in a long-term experiment with vegetables under organic management. Four different cereal crops were introduced as ASCs. Weed abundance and richness and the functio ...[more]

PMID: 32481720

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Project description:Domesticated grain crops evolved from wild plants under human cultivation, losing natural dispersal mechanisms to become dependent upon humans, and showing changes in a suite of other traits, including increasing seed size. There is tendency for seed enlargement during domestication to be viewed as the result of deliberate selection for large seeds by early farmers. However, like some other domestication traits, large seeds may have evolved through natural selection from the activities of people as they gathered plants from the wild, or brought them into cultivation in anthropogenic settings. Alternatively, larger seeds could have arisen via pleiotropic effects or genetic linkage, without foresight from early farmers, and driven by selection that acted on other organs or favored larger plants. We have separated these unconscious selection effects on seed enlargement from those of deliberate selection, by comparing the wild and domesticated forms of vegetable crops. Vegetables are propagated by planting seeds, cuttings, or tubers, but harvested for their edible leaves, stems, or roots, so that seed size is not a direct determinant of yield. We find that landrace varieties of seven vegetable crops have seeds that are 20% to 2.5-times larger than those of their closest wild relatives. These domestication effect sizes fall completely within the equivalent range of 14% to 15.2-times for grain crops, although domestication had a significantly larger overall effect in grain than vegetable crops. Seed enlargement in vegetable crops that are propagated vegetatively must arise from natural selection for larger seeds on the occasions when plants recruit from seed and are integrated into the crop gene pool, or via a genetic link to selection for larger plants or organs. If similar mechanisms operate across all species, then unconscious selection during domestication could have exerted stronger effects on the seed size of our staple crops than previously realized.

Project description:Pea or Pisum sativum L. is a key diversification crop, but current varieties are not very competitive against weeds. The objective was to identify, depending on the type of cropping system and weed flora, (1) the key pea parameters that drive crop production, weed control and weed contribution to biodiversity, (2) optimal combinations of pea-parameter values and crop-management techniques to maximize these goals. For this, virtual experiments were run, using FLORSYS, a mechanistic simulation model. This individual-based 3D model simulates daily crop-weed seed and plant dynamics over the years, from the cropping system and pedoclimate. Here, this model was parameterized for seven pea varieties, from experiments and literature. Moreover, ten virtual varieties were created by randomly combining variety-parameter values according to a Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) plan, respecting parameter ranges and correlations observed in the actual varieties. A global sensitivity analysis was run, using another LHS plan to combine pea varieties, crop rotations and management techniques in nine contrasting situations (e.g., conventional vs. organic, no-till, type of weed flora). Simulated data were analyzed with classification and regression trees (CART). We highlighted (1) Parameters that drive potential yield and competitivity against weeds (notably the ability to increase plant height and leaf area in shaded situations), depending on variety type (spring vs. winter) and cropping system. These are pointers for breeding varieties to regulate weeds by biological interactions; (2) Rules to guide farmers to choose the best pea variety, depending on the production goal and the cropping system; (3) The trade-off between increasing yield potential and minimizing yield losses due to weeds when choosing pea variety and management, especially in winter peas. The main pea-variety rules were the same for all performance goals, management strategies, and analyses scales, but further rules were useful for individual goals, strategies, and scales. Some variety features only fitted to particular systems (e.g., delayed pea emergence is only beneficial in case of herbicide-spraying and disastrous in unsprayed systems). Fewer variety rules should be compensated by more management rules. If one of the two main weed-control levers, herbicide or tillage, was eliminated, further pea-variety and/or management rules were needed.

Dataset Information

Weed Functional Diversity as Affected by Agroecological Service Crops and No-Till in a Mediterranean Organic Vegetable System.

Publications

Weed Functional Diversity as Affected by Agroecological Service Crops and No-Till in a Mediterranean Organic Vegetable System.

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