Muriel Valantin-Morison

Mixing plant species in cropping systems: concepts, tools and models. A review

The evolution of natural ecosystems is controled by a high level of biodiversity, In sharp contrast, intensive agricultural systems involve monocultures associated with high input of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Intensive agricultural systems have clearly negative impacts on soil and water quality and on biodiversity conservation. Alternatively, cropping systems based on carefully designed species mixtures reveal many potential advantages under various conditions, both in temperate and tropical agriculture. This article reviews those potential advantages by addressing the reasons for mixing plant species; the concepts and tools required for understanding and designing cropping systems with mixed species; and the ways of simulating multispecies cropping systems with models. Multispecies systems are diverse and may include annual and perennial crops on a gradient of complexity from 2 to n species. A literature survey shows potential advantages such as (1) higher overall productivity, (2) better control of pests and diseases, (3) enhanced ecological services and (4) greater economic profitability. Agronomic and ecological conceptual frameworks are examined for a clearer understanding of cropping systems, including the concepts of competition and facilitation, above- and belowground interactions and the types of biological interactions between species that enable better pest management in the system. After a review of existing models, future directions in modelling plant mixtures are proposed. We conclude on the need to enhance agricultural research on these multispecies systems, combining both agronomic and ecological concepts and tools.

Agroecosystem management and biotic interactions: a review

Increasing the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides in agroecosystems has led to higher crop yields, accompanied by a decline in biodiversity at the levels of field, cropping system and farm. Biodiversity decline has been favoured by changes at landscape level such as regional farm specialisation, increases in field size, and the removal of hedgerows and woodlots. The loss of biodiversity in agroecosystems has increased the need for external inputs because beneficial functions are no longer provided by beneficial species as natural enemies of crop pests and ecosystem engineers. This trend has led to a strong reliance on petrochemicals in agroecosystems. However, many scientists have been arguing for more than two decades that this reliance on petrochemicals could be considerably reduced by a better use of biotic interactions. This article reviews options to increase beneficial biotic interactions in agroecosystems and to improve pest management and crop nutrition whilst decreasing petrochemical use. Four agronomic options are presented. First, it has been shown that the choice of cultivar, the sowing date and nitrogen fertilisation practices can be manipulated to prevent interactions between pests and crop, in either time or space. Nevertheless, the efficacy of these manipulations may be limited by pest adaptation. Second, beneficial biotic interactions may result from appropriate changes to the habitats of natural enemies and ecosystem engineers, mediated by soil and weed management. Here, knowledge is scarce, and indirect and complex effects are poorly understood. Third, changes achieved by crop diversification and, fourth, by landscape adaptation are promising. However, these practices also present drawbacks that may not necessarily be outweighed by beneficial effects. Overall, these four management approaches provide a powerful framework to develop sustainable agronomic practices.

Methodological Progress in On-Farm Regional Agronomic Diagnosis: A Review

The development of sustainable cropping systems is a key priority for agronomists and crop scientists. A first step involves understanding the relationship between cropping system performance and farmers’ practices. To complete this step, a methodological framework entitled Regional Agronomic Diagnosis (RAD) has been developed. During the last ten years, the scope of the regional agronomic diagnosis has been enlarged to include several factors describing crop quality and the environmental impact of cropping systems. Regional agronomic diagnosis has led to several major advances such as (1) the assessment of the effect of preceding crop and soil structure on malting barley quality in France and (2) the assessment of the effects of ploughing, nematicide use and fertilisers on soil properties in intensive banana plantations in the West Indies. Improvements have also been gained in methodology, particularly by the selection of indicators for assessing the effects of crop management, soil and weather conditions, and data analysis. Finally, regional agronomic diagnosis has been integrated into more general approaches of agricultural development. We review here this methodological progress.

Factors limiting the grain protein content of organic winter wheat in south-eastern France: a mixed-model approach

Organic agriculture could achieve the objectives of sustainable agriculture by banning the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. However, organic crops generally show lower performances than conventional ones. In France, organic winter wheat production is characterized by low grain protein content. There is a crucial need for better understanding the variability of grain protein content, because millers require batches with values over 10.5% of dry matter. Here, a regional agronomic diagnosis was carried out to identify the limiting factors and crop management practices explaining the variability of grain protein content. The studied field network was a set of 51 organic winter wheat plots in south-eastern France. The mixed-model method was used for identifying and ranking the limiting factors and the crop management practices responsible for variation in limiting factors. Our results show that the grain protein content variation was mostly explained by the baking quality grade of the cultivar, crop nitrogen status and weed density at flowering. There was a positive correlation between grain protein content and both crop nitrogen status and weed density. To a lesser extent, climatic factors also explained grain protein content variability. A lower water stress increased grain protein content, whereas an increase in the photothermal quotient and daily temperature over 25 °C reduced grain protein content. In south-eastern France, grain protein content of organic winter wheat could be increased by improving fertilization management, using an improved baking quality grade cultivar, choosing a legume fodder crop as preceding crop, or by avoiding late sowing dates.

Local and landscape determinants of pollen beetle abundance in overwintering habitats

1 The development of integrated pest management strategies requires that the semi‐natural habitats scattered across the landscape are taken into account. Particular determinants of insect pest abundance in overwintering habitats just before they migrate onto crops appear to be poorly known and of crucial importance for understanding patterns of crop colonization and pest population dynamics at the landscape scale. 2 The emergence of pollen beetle Meligethes aeneus F. was studied in grassland, woodland edge and woodland interior over a 3‐year survey in France using macro‐emergence traps. A suite of variables at the local and the landscape scale was assessed for each trap, aiming to identify potential relevant habitat indicators. The effects of habitat characteristics were evaluated using partial least square regressions. 3 It was found that M. aeneus can overwinter in all types of habitat but that particular habitat characteristics at the local and landscape scales may explain their abundance in overwintering sites more than the types of habitat: relative altitude, litter thickness, soil moisture and proximity to the previous years oilseed rape fields appear to be positively correlated with abundance of adults over the 3 years. 4 Hence, the abundance of emerged pollen beetles depends on both the landscape configuration of the previous years oilseed rape fields around overwintering sites and local habitat characteristics. Landscape configuration may determine population flow towards overwintering sites in the late summer, and local habitat characteristics may influence survival rates during the winter. The findings of the present study provide valuable insight into the role of semi‐natural habitats as a source of pests, patterns of crop colonization in the spring, and the influence of landscape on pollen beetle abundance.

Diagnosis of limiting factors of organic oilseed rape yield. A survey of farmers’ fields

The yield of organic winter oilseed rape (WOSR) crop is low and variable in organic farming, but the reasons responsible for this problem are not clear. Aiming to identify the factors affecting organic oilseed rape yields, we carried out a diagnostic study on a network of 19 farmers’ fields in four contrasting regions of France over a two-year period. Weed density and biomass, nitrogen absorption by the crop and by weeds, and nutrient availability in the soil, as well as the occurrence of pests and diseases, were assessed at four developmental stages. A range of possible limiting factors throughout the crop cycle led us to use a regression procedure for different periods, using the yield components during spring and biomass during autumn as dependent variables. We identified factors limiting yield and the critical time points at which they acted, which has never been done. Yield variation was strongly correlated with number of grains.m−2. Dry biomass of weeds, nitrogen uptake by weeds and density of weeds appeared to explain 39% of variation in crop biomass in early winter, while pollen beetle and rape stem weevil damage explained 4.5% and 12% of variation in the number of flowers.m−2 and the number of branches.m−2, respectively. Crop nitrogen deficiencies occurring before branching were strongly correlated with weed biomass in flowering. Analysis of covariance showed that sowing date, soil management and the quantity of organic manure application may have significantly affected the nitrogen nutrition index, nitrogen uptake by plants and ratio of weed biomass: a late sowing date and shallow soil tillage were related to a low crop nitrogen nutrition index and high ratio of weed biomass. From a practical point of view, this study demonstrated that it should be possible to reduce weed competition by ensuring that the amount of nitrogen in soil before sowing is around 100 kg/ha.

Nutritional state of the pollen beetle parasitoid Tersilochus heterocerus foraging in the field

Many laboratory studies have demonstrated that parasitoids of various species depend on sugar sources such as nectar or honeydew. However, studies about nectar acquisition by parasitoids foraging in the field are scarce. Tersilochus heterocerus Thomson is one of the more abundant and widespread parasitoids of the pollen beetle (Meligethes aeneus F.) but nothing is known about the nutritional ecology of this species. In this study we examined the nutritional state of T. heterocerus at the time of emergence and at various time periods throughout the season while foraging in the field using high-performance anion-exchange chromatography. We found that: (i) T. heterocerus emerge with relatively small amounts of sugar, composed mainly of trehalose, glucose and fructose; (ii) the first parasitoids caught just after they appeared in the field at the beginning of oilseed rape flowering had already consumed significant amounts of sugar reserves; and (iii) the total amount of sugar at the end of flowering was always significantly higher than the total amount of sugar at the beginning of flowering. This study provides valuable insights into the acquisition of sugar in the field by the parasitoid T. heterocerus and suggests that nectar acquisition takes place in the oilseed rape field or in the surrounding landscape.

Integrating Crop and Landscape Management into New Crop Protection Strategies to Enhance Biological Control of Oilseed Rape Insect Pests

The development of sustainable cropping systems is a major challenge for agronomists and crop scientists in many regions of the world. The prophylactic uses of broad spectrum insecticides are actually the main solution for farmers to control insect pests. Therefore, there is a growing need to develop innovative crop protection strategies through an integrated approach which aims at favouring natural enemies and enhancing biological control in agroecosystems. The development of such strategies requires a thorough understanding of agroecosystem functioning. In this chapter, we present the effects of different elements, from the field scale to the landscape scale that are known to enhance biological control in agroecosystems and limit pest damage with particular reference to oilseed rape. Linking integrated pest management and landscape ecology brings a regional perspective to the management of pest populations. Available techniques are often added together rather than combined in an integrated way and are rarely evaluated through environmental and economical criteria. Therefore, we present a methodological framework to design and assess sustainable cropping systems, with a particular emphasis on complementariness between models, systemic trials and more analytical approaches. Implementation of sustainable cropping systems implies the development of new integrated pest management strategies and thereby an increased participation of the different stakeholders from farmers to policy makers.

Explaining host–parasitoid interactions at the landscape scale: a new approach for calibration and sensitivity analysis of complex spatio-temporal models

Linking spatial pattern and process is a difficult task in landscape ecology because spatial patterns of populations result from complex factors such as individual traits, the spatio-temporal variation of the habitat, and the relationships between the target species and other species. Mechanistic models provide tools to bridge this gap but they are seldom used to study the influence of landscape patterns on biological processes. In this paper, we develop a methodological approach based on sensitivity and multivariate analyses to investigate the relationship between the biological parameters of species and landscape characteristics. As a case study, we used a tritrophic system that includes a host plant (oilseed rape, Brassica napus L.), a pest of the host plant (the pollen beetle, Meligethes aeneus F.), and the main parasitoid of the pest (Tersilochus heterocerus). This tritrophic system was recently represented by a model (Mosaic-Pest) that is spatially explicit at the landscape scale and that includes 32 biological parameters. In the current study, model simulations were compared with observed data from 35 landscapes differing in configuration. Sensitivity analysis using the Morris method identified those biological parameters that were highly sensitive to landscape configuration. Then, multivariate analyses revealed how a parameter’s influence on model output could be affected by landscape composition. Comparison of simulated and observed data helped us decrease the uncertainty surrounding the estimated values of the literature-derived parameters describing beetle dispersal and stage transition of the parasitoid at emergence. The advantages of using multivariate sensitivity analyses to disentangle the links between patterns and processes in landscape-scale spatially explicit models are discussed.

Characterization of the pollen beetle, Brassicogethes aeneus, dispersal from woodlands to winter oilseed rape fields

Many crop pests rely on resources out of crop fields; understanding how they colonize the fields is an important factor to develop integrated pest management. In particular, the time of crop colonization and damage severity might be determined by pest movements between fields and non-crop areas. Notably, the pollen beetle, Brassicogethes aeneus, previously named Meligethes aeneus, one of the most important pests of winter oilseed rape, overwinters in woodlands. As a result, its abundance increases in oilseed rape fields near wooded areas. Here, we assessed the spatio-temporal patterns of the dispersal from woodlands to oilseed rape fields in diversified landscapes of a same region. We observed on four dates the abundance of pollen beetles in 24 fields spread in the Eure department, France. We modeled the abundance as a result of the dispersal from the neighboring woodlands. We compared the modalities of dispersal corresponding to different hypotheses on the dispersal origin, kernel shape and sources of variability. Within oilseed rape the distance to the edges of woodlands is not the main determinant of pollen beetle abundance. On the contrary, the variability of the abundance between fields is largely explained by the dispersal from neighboring woodlands but there is considerable variability between dates, sites and, to a lesser extent, between fields. The two dispersal kernels received similar support from the data and lead to similar conclusions. The mean dispersal distance is 1.2 km but seems to increase from a few hundred meters the first week to more than two kilometers the fourth, allowing the pollen beetles to reach more distant OSR fields. These results suggest that early varieties away from woodlands and late varieties close to the woodlands may limit attacks at the time when oilseed rape is the most sensitive.