2019/01/01 by P. Cotinet, Cotinet, Patrice, Jean-Luc Giteau +4
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Agriculture and Rural Development Research
paper · doi:10.15454/r5otdm
As part of the "SGC Bretagne" project, three innovative cropping systems, including no forage crops and designed to meet the needs of cattle breeding, were experimented for 5 years and evaluated. The design of these three systems was based on the "ESR - Efficiency, Substitution, Re-design" framework: two conventional systems were based, one on the search for efficiency in the use of phytosanitary products, the other on the methods of cropping systems re-design; the third was designed according to organic farming principles. The evaluation of these cropping systems highlights the possibility of reducing the use of phytosanitary products while maintaining profitability and workload. The cropping systems evaluated did not penalize the semi-net margins compared to the reference used: they are equivalent or better. The decrease in IFT is close to the target of -50%, with a reduction of 44% for systems using phytosanitary products, limited by herbicide dependence for the control of perennials in intercropping. Another result of the experiment is that the diversification of cropping systems limits economic variations between years, thanks to offsets from one crop to another within the rotation.