No

Issue

Text

1

Aims

Establish clear rules for all inspectors, certification officers, and farmers, con­cerning minimum requirements for crop rotation and legumes.

2

Background

Crop rotation, legumes and cover crops are crucial to maintain soil fertility and prevent pests and diseases. In spite of this, deficiencies in this area are very common among organic farms.

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Normative framework

EU-regulation

Annex I. A.

2.1. The fertility and the biological activity of the soil must be maintained or in­creased, in the first instance, by:

(a) cultivation of legumes, green manures or deep-rooting plants in an appropriate multi-annual rotation programme;

3: Pests, diseases and weeds shall be controlled by a combination of the following measures:

…  appropriate rotation programme …

Only in cases of immediate threat to the crop may recourse be had to products referred to in Annex II.

NOP

§ 205.2: Crop rotation: The practice of alternating the annual crops grown on a specific field in a planned pattern or sequence in successive crop years, so that crops of the same species or family are not grown repeatedly without interruption on the same field. Perennial cropping systems employ means such as alley crop­ping, intercropping, and hedgerows to introduce biological diversity in lieu of crop sequencing.

§ 205.205: The producer must implement a crop rotation including, but not limited to, sod, cover crops, green manure crops, and catch crops that provide the fol­ow­ing functions that are applicable to the operation:

a)    Maintain or improve soil organic matter content;

b)    Provide for pest management in annual and perennial crops;

c)    Manage deficient or excess plant nutrients; and

d)    (d) Provide erosion control.

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Terms

Annual crop: Crop, which remains on the field during one year or less.

Perennial crop: Crop, which remains on the field more than one year.

Intercrop: Association of several crops on the same field at the same time.

Cover crop: Crop used for soil cover, in interrow spaces of perennial crops, or during periods, where no harvested crops are grown in annual crops.

Legumes: Plants of the families Fabaceae (predominating), Caesalpinaceae and Mimosaceae. Can be herbaceous plants, shrubs, or trees, cultivated or spontaneous.

Green manure: Plant biomass is incorporated to the soil as a source of organic matter and nutrients.

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Policy

5.1

Minimum requirements for rotation of annual field crops

·         At least three different crops must be rotated (exception: flooded rice), belonging to three different botanical families. In case the three different crops belong only to two different botanical families the predominant family must not have more than 66 % of the crop rotation and a compensation must be provided that is especially suitable to increase soil fertility (e.g. a mixture of clover and grasses for moderate climates or a mixture of different legumes for all climates).
Among the crop rotation elements, cover or green manure crops can be included. Spontaneous fallow vegetation can also be counted as a crop rotation element. We do not establish minimum requirements for the time-share of each crop: Some crops may remain on the field significantly longer than others (exception: Minimum time for green manure crops or fallow periods, see below).
CERES will allow special conditions for polyculture farming systems or crop rotations systems with integrated special compensation effects as the cases arises (e.g. legumes integrated as undersown crops in cereals, mixed or intercropping systems with legumes, etc.).

·         To avoid excessive degradation of soil organic matter, row crops with intensive manual weeding (vegetables, potatoes, etc.) must not cover more than 50% of the total crop rotation. Exception: intensive horticulture on small farms.

·         To avoid pests and diseases species with the same or similar susceptibility to certain pests and diseases must not follow directly on top of each other.
In this context special requirements for Brassicaceae (cabbage etc.) have to be pointed out: Due to susceptibilities of the members of this botanical family to diseases like clubroot caused by Plasmodiophora brassicae these species must not cover more than one third of the whole crop rotation.

Remark

5.2

Minimum requirements for legumes in rotations of annual crops

·         Legumes must cover at least 25 % of total crop rotation, one third is desirable.

·         Since grain legumes (beans, peas, soybeans, etc.) usually leave little nitrogen on the field, or even have a negative N-balance in some cases, forage or green manure legumes must cover at least 50 % of the total share of legumes.
In case no forage or green manure legumes are integrated into the crop rotation, but exclusi­vely grain legumes these will count only half. Consequently the total share of (grain-)legumes in this (less favourable) crop rotation would be 50 % (instead of 25 %).

·         Exceptions can be made for small intensive horticulture farms and greenhouses. Soil organic matter in these cases must be conserved or increased by other means, e.g. organic manure from external sources.

Remark

5.3

Cover crops in annual rotations

·         To protect soil from erosion, increase soil organic matter, promote soil life and nitrogen fixation, prevent nutrient leaching, green manure or cover crops must be grown, whenever there is a period without crops of six weeks or more, if allowed by climatic conditions.

5.4

Soil cover in perennial crops

·         Wherever possible, interrow spaces must be covered by vegetation.

·         One exception to this rule can be made for agroforestry systems, where soil is covered through several vegetation storeys.

·         A second exception can be made for agroecosystems, where water is scarce, and cover crops would compete with the main crop for water. Mulches should be used as an alternative in these situations, wherever possible.

5.5

Legumes in perennial crops:

·         Wherever possible, legumes should be used as cover crops.

·         Legume shrubs or trees can replace herbaceous legumes.

·         Low intensity crops with low yield levels, low nutrient export, and without or with very low levels of nitrogen fertilisation from external sources, can usually be considered as sustainable. Planting of legumes other than those, which grow spontaneously, is not compulsory in these situations (e.g. low input cocoa or coffee plantations, or fruit orchards in temperate climate). In crops, however, where considerable amounts of nitrogen are applied from external sources (e.g. as poultry manure), at least part of this must be replaced through significant efforts to promote biological nitrogen fixation by legumes.

5.6

Special cases

Bananas:

Legume cover crops must be planted, when new plantations are established. Usually, most legumes will disappear, when banana plants are big enough to overshadow the whole surface. As long as no really satisfying systems for combining legumes with intensive banana plantations have been found so far, legume planting is not compulsory there. The farmer should be encouraged, however, to contribute with their own experiments to finding solutions for this problem.

Sugarcane:

In the period between harvest and resprouting, green manure legumes can and should be grown. Exception: small scale production, where only small quantities are harvested at a time (often only harvesting the ripe canes, distributed all over the field).

Pineapples:

After removing pineapple plants (this can be after two to three years in intensive systems or after many years in smallholder low-inputs systems), at least one other crop plus one legume green ma­nure crop must be grown, before pineapples are newly planted.

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Access to this policy

·         This policy is available to all interested public

·         It must be handed out to all CERES certification and inspection personnel

·          It must be submitted to all operators interested in organic crop certification.

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Related documents

·         Brief Information on Crop Production