Crop residues reuse to improve agricultural soil quality

Abstract

Since the 70´s in The Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia, the irrigated agricultural area has increased, especially in the agrarian district “Comarca del Campo de Cartagena”, (South East of Spain). As a consequence, the amount of crop residues generated has gone up too. At the present, harvest residues constitute a very serious environmental problem because, in most cases, these residues are dehydrated on the land and burned later on with subsequent negative consequences for the environment. Therefore, it is important to find a suitable residue management system which would be able to recycle them, solving serious environmental problems related to their final disposal. The main aim of this study is to reuse crop residues in order to recycle nutrients and improve soil properties. To do so, we will evaluate the influence of recycle vegetables residues on the quality of soil-plant system and therefore being able to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. Plant waste use in this study comes from pepper crops because it represents more than 90% of the surface occupied by greenhouses in this Agrarian District. In this experiment we compare two fertilization methods: chemical fertilization used by farmers and organic amendments with crop residues. In both cases plots are divided in subplots of 5 x 4 meters in which we evaluate different doses of nitrogen, to establish the most efficient dose to reduce nutrients leaching without affecting production. Soil samples are taken at two different depths in order to know the evolution of several physical and chemical parameters such us organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, bioavailable cations, metals, etc. Plant samples, will be also collected at the end of the cycle to measure quality and productivity parameters.