MoLTE is part of the experimental farm of Florence University, which is located in Montepaldi, San Casciano Val di Pesa, Tuscany, Central Italy, and it covers an area of about 15 ha, in a lightly slopped area, 90 m asl. The whole MoLTE experimental site is divided in ten fields of around 1,3 ha each. The MoLTE experiment started in 1992 and is currently still ongoing.
The fields are surrounded by semi-natural habitats composed by natural and artificial hedge, flower strip, spontaneous bushes and grass.
The experimental site is composed by differently managed systems, designed with the purpose of comparing organic and conventional management.
The organic systems operate on a 4-year rotation including Maize/Sunflower – Legume -Wheat/Barley – Legume, while for the conventional one a two-year crop rotation is used in which Maize/ Sunflower follows Wheat/ Barley.
The European project FertilCrop, started in 2015, will last for three years. The overall aim of FertilCrop is to develop efficient and sustainable management techniques aimed at increasing crop productivity in organic farming systems.
To achieve this, one of the aims of the project is to investigate the mutual interactions of crop plants with weeds and co-cultivated plants. Our experimental design consists in studies different type of primary soil tillage operations to test this mutual interaction in two different crops: barley and sunflower. The study is based on how this tillage can affect the biodiversity quality of the agro-ecosystem in different managed systems, organic and conventional, and to investigate the response of the crop in terms of yield.
The species sampling was doing within the field and the semi natural habitat. This communities are sampled using two different methods. Within the field the Raunkiær method are used and the density of the species (number of individuals expressed per unit of area) and biomass per species are assessed. Within the semi natural habitat the transect method are used, with which the presence/absence of the species are evaluated. Using numerical indexes, the biodiversity quality of the agro-ecosystem are evaluated. Furthermore additional information about primary tillage operation and the interaction with weeds could be assessed
