The Direct Costs for Cover Crops Cultivation: Comparison Between Different Agronomical Practices

Home AIIA 2022: Biosystems Engineering Towards the Green Deal Conference paper The Direct Costs for Cover Crops Cultivation: Comparison Between Different Agronomical Practices Aldo Calcante, Daniele Manenti & Roberto Oberti Conference paper First Online: 01 July 2023 25 Accesses Part of the Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering book series (LNCE,volume 337) Abstract As it is known, cover crops are plants that cover the soil between the harvest of the main crop and the seeding of the later. They are herbaceous species that are not cultivated for their commercial value, but to obtain agronomical and environmental benefits. These species are inserted in the production processes with the primary aim to maintain soil covered by vegetation in periods when the same soil would remain lacking in every cultivation, and therefore subject to damaging effect from pedological point of view. The limits of cover crops are due to their nature. Indeed, since they are crops which do not have a commercial value, the most significant aspect is related to their production costs therefore the incidence of costs for the purchase of seed, for seeding and for the termination must be limited. The goal of this study is to experimentally evaluate and analyze in details the fuel consumption, the main operative parameters (i.e. workability and hours necessary to carry out every single mechanized activity per hectare) and costs per unit of area for fuel, labor and agrochemical required for the cover crops cultivation, as a function of different agronomical practices applied. In particular, the study takes into account the following agronomical practices: 1) conventional tillage, 2) minimum tillage, 3) direct seeding and 4) no-tillage and, to destroy cover crop, the mechanical and the chemical termination.