Inspirational ideas: cover crops for quality soil in the Po river valley

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Geographical scope	European Union Italy Emilia Romagna
Keywords	agroecology crop rotation innovation sustainability cover crop

This inspirational idea is also available in a Slovak version.

Translation courtesy of the National Rural Network Slovakia. Read more EIP-AGRI inspirational ideas in Slovak on the NRN website.

In recent years, many farms in the Italian Po river valley suffered from decreasing levels of soil organic matter and more weeds. This was due to a number of practices, including a lack of organic matter input, repeated tillage of the land, and periods where the soil was kept bare. Operational Group ‘Agroecological cover’ developed innovative conservation tillage systems for farms in the Emilia-Romagna area, based on the use of cover crops.

“Our tests have shown that we can cultivate spring-summer crops in a no-tillage system with good and stable yields. Keeping the land covered helped to reduce weeds”, says project coordinator Paolo Mantovi.