A project of seven European countries, in which the Polytechnic University of Cartagena participates, experiments in La Palma and La Junquera with rotation to improve soils, while reducing the use of fertilizers and phytosanitary products
The farmers who last Wednesday visited the Tomás Ferro experimental fruit and vegetable farm, in the Cartagena town of La Palma, apparently did not discover anything new. Neither did those who on Friday, within the same initiative, approached a unique cereal plantation in the Caravaca district of La Junquera. Both groups found that the scientific avant-garde of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) practices production methods that have been with us for centuries. Crop rotation is not a discovery, but it is revolutionary in an environment now dominated by intensive industrial agriculture.
What is being tested in a certain way in the aforementioned areas of Cartagena and Caravaca is an argument to put together “a project of change in farming systems throughout Europe”, by way of increasing “acceptance, mutual learning and incorporating the local knowledge by establishing effective knowledge transfer processes. This is reflected in objective 8 of the European project Soildiver Agro, participated by 22 partners from seven countries, and in which these works that the UPCT carries out with the collaboration of the Agrarian Association of Young Farmers (Asaja) and the company Ceutiense Fyneco.
This change is focused on “products from farmland with high biodiversity”, and includes more recent plantations, such as broccoli in our Region, and obtaining more crop cycles, for example, to achieve the highest possible profitability of practices much more respectful. In this mission it is key to end up “involving all stakeholders in the value chain”, explain its creators, and expressly cite “researchers, politicians, farmers, advisors, suppliers and people from the agricultural industry”. It is important for all of them to know, for example, that rotating melon, potato and broccoli plantations can reduce the use of fertilizers by 30%, as well as phytosanitary products, while improving the state of the land.
In addition, a direct relationship between the increase in soil biodiversity and the improvement of the harvest and the quality of agricultural products is pursued, as explained by those responsible for this international initiative led by the University of Vigo, and which from the UPCT coordinates the researcher at the Raúl Zornoza School of Agronomists.
For now, Zornoza advances, “the preliminary results in the rotation trial being carried out by the UPCT already show that the reduction in the use of fertilizers did not affect potato production and that the presence of fungi and conditions was significantly low.” Half a hundred researchers from the seven countries participating in the project approached the open-air laboratories that make up the aforementioned test farms in the middle of the month.
Professor Juan Fernández, a specialist in the plant production area of the UPCT Department of Agronomic Engineering, highlights the novelty of the project by incorporating broccoli into the old uses of rotation, “which is a relatively recent crop in the Region , and a greater intensification when performing the cycles». Specifically, Fernández refers to obtaining “two crops per campaign, taking advantage of the fact that the current crops have a more grouped harvest.” In addition, in these trials “a joint inoculation of fungal strains and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria” is carried out, which allows the usual amount of fertilizers to be reduced. Ultimately, he adds, a process is produced that improves the quality of the crop, soil fertility and biodiversity, in addition to affecting “protection against the effects of phytopathogens.”
Beyond these additions, acknowledges the scientist, “the advantages of rotation have been known since ancient times.” These include “the increase in soil fertility; the improvement of its properties, such as the increase in porosity and the improvement of water retention, and the reduction of diseases”, while “with an adequate rotation we avoid the fatigue of the soil caused by the repetition of the same crops on the plot.”
In the case of the trials that have been carried out for a year and a half on a 3,600-square-meter plot of the Tomás Ferro Agrifood Experimental Station, of the UPCT, the old practices are applied with the inclusion of broccoli and the application of controlled treatments of reduction of fertilizers, as has been pointed out. In the case of broccoli, which has just been tested in the second rotation cycle, after that of the potato, it has been observed how the 50% reduction in fertilizers affects its quality and productivity parameters. Now the third cycle of rotation, that of the melon, is about to be harvested. At the same time, Fernández points out, “biodiversity in the soil (bacteria, fungi, earthworms, etc.) is being measured and we are finding a greater diversity in the treatments with these formulations of microorganisms.” The rotation will be completed at the end of this 2022, after two years and with a last planting cycle, again of potato, like the first.
As for the tests that have been carried out in Caravaca, rye, wheat and, in the third year, legumes are rotated, with a reduction of fertilization of 30% (here slurry and organic pellets are used, since it is an ecological plantation) , and highly controlled commercial products are also applied.
When the scheduled cycles have concluded, in six months, it will be time to extract the main results of this project financed by the European Union through the Horizon 2020 Program and whose indicative is Grant agreement No. 817819. Everything sounds very advanced, but paradoxically it is only a matter of improving old uses that in some cases had almost ceased to be applied in the face of industrial agriculture to which a sustainable alternative is now being sought.
The resistance of monoculture producers
The clock is ticking inexorably against some of the uses of intensive agriculture that have been practiced with remarkable production success for a few years. Its considerable environmental footprint, and the growing consequences for human well-being, are a toll that official bodies are less and less willing to pay and that science tries to overcome by seeking answers, sometimes with old practices in disuse, such as rotation of crops, now improved with new research. The solution developed by the Soildiver initiative has an important disclosure component. Its managers are aware that introducing these practices largely involves “making producers aware” of the importance of having soil in the best conditions, explains UPCT professor Juan Fernández.
The soil, Fernández continues, “is an essential starting point for the crop to develop with few problems”, and with rotation “we increase the beneficial organisms in the soil that favor crop growth”. However, he adds, “against we have many producers who are specialized in a few crops with which they have resolved their commercialization, which leads them to monoculture.” For these cases, adds the scientist, “various techniques could be used such as vegetable covers (between the main crops), intercropping, etc., which also favor soil biodiversity.” The European Commission presented a little over a year ago the plan ‘From the farm to the table’, aimed at a more sustainable agriculture and for which it contemplates that 40% of the funds dedicated until the year 2027 to the European agricultural policy contribute to the so-called ‘Action for the climate’, which initiatives such as the Soildiver Agro project try to promote.
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