Nurse your soilControlled Traffic Farming to improve soil quality and yield in organic vegetable production

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

Margita Hefner and Hanne Lakkenborg KristensenAarhus University, Department of Food Science, Kirstinebjergvej 10, DK-5792 Aarslev m

arg

ita.h

efne

r@fo

od

.au.

dk

Tel:

+45

87 1

5 83

23

The project

In the project “Organics in the trail” (Økologi i sporet) CTF is compared to random traffic at two vegetable farms in Denmark, Vostrup Øko in Tarm and Skiftekær Økologi on Tåsinge. The ex-periment started in 2013 and is running until 2016. The effects on the soil structure, plant and root growth, as well as soil nitro-gen content are measured.

Preliminary results

In November 2015 cabbage root growth has been obser-ved in minirhizotrons. Higher root intensity has been ob-served in the CTF plots com-pared to the random traffic plots, indicating favourable growing conditions in the CTF plots. The results of the yield confirm this as they were hig-her in CTF plots compared to random traffic plots for all three different crops studied (cabbage, potato and be-etroot).

The problem

A possible solution

Controlled traffic farming (CTF) provides a possibility to alleviate these problems.

The use of heavy machinery can lead to:

Reduced soil pore space

environmental pollutionNitrogen run-off

decreased plant yieldInhibited root growth

soil compaction

In CTF, GPS signals

are used to keep all ma-chine traffic in permanent

lanes and crop growth on non-trafficked beds. Thereby, the

soil within the beds is free from compaction, potentially leading

to an improved soil structure and plant growth.

Photo: Peter Bay, Skiftekær

Photo: Astrid Bergmann, Aarhus University