Energy flows in European organic vegetable systems: Effects of the introduction and management of agroecological service crops

Reducing inputs by promoting the recycling of energy within a cropping system is one of the principles of organic farming. To this end, the introduction and proper management of agroecological service crops (ASC) can play a key role. Few studies have analysed the effect of ASC introduction and compared energy flows under green manure (ASC-GM) and no-till roller crimper (ASC-NT) management. Moreover, current energy flows studies do not account for all the sources of energy that could be recycled within a cropping system, and none of them have evaluated the efficiency of cropping systems for recycling energy.

Our study, which gathered information on eight field experiments across six European countries over two years, indicates that ASC inclusion and management required, on average, a 19.73% higher input investment than systems that did not include them. Nevertheless, ASC management strategies were more prone to increase the energy that potentially could be recycled within the cropping system. Moreover, this study also provides, for the first time, evidence that ASC-NT reduces the marketable production efficiency relative to ASC-GM but improves the environmental performance by increasing the potential energy that can be recycled within the cropping system across a wide range of European pedo-climatic conditions.