Occasional reduced tillage in organic farming can promote earthworm performance and resource efficiency

摘要: Reduced tillage has several advantages over conventional (CT), including the promotion of earthworm communities and reduction input energy labour. However, its application in organic farming is mainly hindered through increasing weed pressure. One way to counteract this drawback might be introduce occasional reduced (ORT), which means applying methods only combination with selected crops. Against background we hypothesized that (i) ORT rapidly promotes biomass, abundance species richness (ii) generates a financial surplus for farmers. Therefore, field experiment was established triticale (x Triticosecale) cultivation on loamy soils Northern Germany. The influence regimes earthworms investigated non-randomized design n = 3 fields CT treatment. Earthworm were October 2012 April 2013. Yields determined three under each system, four replicates, before harvest treatment consisted two operations prior seeding maximal depth 15 cm without ploughing, whereas ploughing 25–30 one other steps seedbed preparation seeding. In total, seven identified. Our data revealed biomass significantly CT, both weeks about months after tillage. This effect holds true number individuals autumn (four ploughing), but not spring (seven ploughing). Results contribution margin analysis showed no consistent trend referring measures. Two fields, performed well (+24% +13%) when managed ORT. At same time field, performing poorly generated deficits (-10%) Overall had immediate positive effects populations. Furthermore, management scheme have economic outcomes crop rotations if overall growing conditions are sufficient. Along usually applied investigate performance, checked whether surface casts could help estimate performance. It became apparent cannot used as general predictor Lumbricus terrestris, anecic total can estimated most reliable by counting casts.