Diversifying crop rotations with temporary grasslands - Université de ...

contain spring ⁄ summer sown crops, where such problematic
grasses are not adapted (Chauvel et al., 2001).
The strong weed community shifts observed in the
space-for-time substitution study had to be confirmed by
classical crop rotation experiments. In particular, future
(long term) studies should analyse the duration of the
effect of perennial crops and determine whether, and
after how many years of annual crops, weed communities
move again to the (initial) state (a), closing the cyclic
trajectory or not. In a Canadian survey, farmers
estimated that weed control benefits of perennial forage
crops lasted for one, two, three or more years (11%,
50% and 33% of respondents, respectively) (Entz et al.,
1995).
Results of this study suggest that the inclusion of
perennial crops into cereal-based crop rotations may
reduce the abundances of weeds that are problematic in
annual crops while favouring other less problematic
species. These species may provide food resources for
heterotrophic organisms and other ecosystem services
that are increasingly recognised (Gerowitt et al., 2003;
Marshall et al., 2003). Changes in weed community
composition provoked by the diversification of crop
rotations with perennial crops may thus (i) contribute to
Integrated Weed Management reducing the need for
herbicide applications and (ii) alleviate the trade-off
between agricultural production and the conservation of
farmland biodiversity.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to many people from the groups of
INRA Dijon, CNRS Chizé and AgroParisTech, especially
L. Grelet, A-C. Denis, D. Charbonnier, L. Bianchi,
D. Le Floch, and B. Chauvel for their contribution in
field work; J. Gasquez for weed taxonomy; P. Inchausti,
A. Thomas and R. Bernard for database maintenance;
F. Dessaint and R. Schmiele for statistical advice;
G. Fried and R. Gunton and two reviewers for helpful
comments. This work received funding from ECOGER
and SYSTERRA programs and AgroSupDijon.
H. Meiss was granted a scholarship of the French
research ministry.
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