Resilient organic berry cropping systems through enhanced biodiversity and innovative management strategies
Consumer demands for organic berries had an amazing ascending trend in the last decades. At the same time, organic berries are often negatively impacted by different pests and diseases including new invasive pests, despite the availability of resistant berry varieties. Moreover, the potential of agroecological measurements in berry cropping systems like enhancing functional diversity using flower strips, polyculture trap plants and cover plants to reduce pests’ damages and improve soil characteristics are not fully exploited yet. Accordingly, there is a stringent need of support for robust and resilient organic berry production systems coming from berry producers, especially for aspects related to pest control.
ResBerry aims to enhance above- and belowground biodiversity in European organic berry orchards in order to increase resilience of berries against major pests and diseases. This will be achieved by increasing plant diversity (via flower strips, trap plants, cover crops), enhancing soil microbial diversity and organizing demonstration plots for innovative pest control strategies. The project investigations will take place in Denmark, Germany, Romania, Poland, Morocco.
ResBerry wants to:
Annette Reineke, Geisenheim University, Germany, email@example.com