Utilizzo di crop flowers per aumentare la biodiversità nel paesaggio agrario

Using Crop Flowers to Increase the Biodiversity in Agricultural Lamdscape.The use of field border strips with crop flowers (plants with a lot of nectar) influences some important factors of the agricultural ecosystem. These include the biodiversity, erosion, fertility and water balance of the soil. All the basic elements for sustainable agriculture. In the Mediterranean area, thousands of years of cohabitation between man and the environment have resulted in severe changes in the nature of the area and in the rural environment. The technological innovations available in recent times have made agricultural operations even more accentuated, above all in terms of protection for the environment. Many researchers in the sector believe that the main cause of the extinction of many species is the continual loss of their natural habitat (Shaffer, 1997). During the last century, the population of the world increased fourfold and given that the area of cultivated land doubled (Creutzen, 2006) as a consequence of this, it is therefore easy to imagine just how much the agricultural sector has affected the loss of biodiversity.Most plants are enomophilous. The community of phytophagous insects is made up of species which live in close contact with a host plant, a similar relationship exists between pollinators and plants. Some Hymenoptera, such as the bumblebee (Bombus spp.) cannot fly for very long distances, so the absence of flowering plants in vast areas means that these species will die out. The objective of our work was to assess the importance of field border strips with crop flowers for landscape. The experimentation was performed for the European project called Operation Pollinator which aims at demonstrating that productive agriculture and a rich and live environment in terms of biodiversity can exist contemporaneously

Tillage system effects upon productivity of Menta X Piperita

The trial examined the cultivation of Mentha x piperita L. (variety Rubescens Camus).The experiment was carried out under Mediterranean climatic conditions. The experiment considered the adoption of three cultivation techineques:(P1) minimum tillage to a depth of 20 cm using a disk harrow,(P2) minimum tillage to a depth of 30 cm using a disk harrow,(P3) conventional tillage by mouldboard ploughing to a to a depth of 40 cm and then a tillage to a depth of 20 cm using a cutter. In 2006 and 2007 the following biometric parameters were determined: stalk length, number of leaves, total fresh weight, fresh weight of the root, fresh weight of the stalk, fresh weight of the leaves, total dry weight and LAI and weeding floristic mapping was performed. Considering the parameters most strictly linked to the economic results (total fresh weight, fresh weight of the leaves and total dry weight) for 2006 and 2007, we found that P2 treatment showed the best performance.P3 has higher values than P1, but in the case of the fresh weight of the leaves and the total dry weight these differences are minor. The results of this trial indicate that minimum tillage of 30 cm is more productive for Menta x Piperita L. Minimum tillage of 20 cm is less productive than conventional tillage