S15 - Session O2 - Organic and biodynamic vegetable production in low energy consumption greenhouses. Sustainable, resilient and innovative food production systems

Authors: Sandra Anselmo *, Daniel Tran, Robert Farinet, Y. Fleury, Céline Gilli, Cédric Camps

The production of organic vegetables in greenhouses is often characterized by an excessive increase in production intensity with low crop rotation diversity and short periods without crop between crop rotation. The objective of this project is to define innovative and resilient cropping system for organic production by using techniques inspired by biodynamic and permaculture as well as by the reduction of energy consumption, due to heating. Such innovative systems should allow to improve (1) diversity of soil biology by using crop rotations, (2) soil microbiology activity and diversity by using ASC, (3) save energy by developing a frost-free strategy compared to heated greenhouses in conventional organic systems and (4) improve soil vitality by substituting or complementing ASC by transfer mulch. The aim of this development of innovative resilient strategies is to compare the final crop production regards to ecological and financial balance. Two greenhouses type Venlo (360 m 2 each) were used: a first one for a business organic cropping system in heated conditions and another one to test three variants combining different innovative alternatives methods in frost free conditions. The alternatives systems included the use of green manure, transfer mulch and a limited choice in treatment products for diseases and pest control, in order to reduce the impact on natural enemies and improve the ecological balance of cropping systems. This experiment has run for over two years between 2018 and 2020. The systems comparisons showed that no difference were measured from fruit and vegetable quality point of view. In the same manner, yield was not affected between each production systems. Finally, the dynamics of soil biodiversity did not show significant impact. The result demonstrate that a positive environmental impact was implemented along our experiments and that further research is necessary to further improve the state of the art results.