Table 1. Summary of management practices and management intensity of the four production systems in FAST (C-IT: Conventional intensive tillage, C-NT: Conventional no tillage, O-IT: Organic intensive tillage, O-RT Organic reduced tillage).
| Management practices | C-IT | C-NT | O-IT | O-RT | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tillage | Plough (20 cm), Rotary harrow (5 cm) | — | Plough (20 cm), Rotary harrow (5 cm) | Disk harrow, Rotary harrow (<10cm) | ||||
| Weed control | Post-emergence herbicides | Glyphosate, Post-emergence herbicides | Mechanical (Harrow, hoe) | |||||
| Fertilization | Mineral (NH4-N/NO3-N) | Organic (cattle slurry) | ||||||
| Management intensity | C-IT | C-NT | O-IT | O-RT | ||||
| Cover cropping | C | CC | C | CC | C | CC | C | CC |
| Energy use (liter fuel ha−1 year−1)* | 54 | 61 | 18 | 22 | 47 | 55 | 25 | 32 |
| relative scaling§ | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.5 |
| N supply (kg N ha−1 year−1)** | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 69 | 69 | 69 | 69 |
| relative scaling§ | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 |
| Pesticide (kg ha−1 active substance)*** | 2.7 | 2.7 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| relative scaling§ | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Averaged intensity score | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.1 | 1.2 |
Management intensity is estimated for each production system using three anthropogenic input factors (Energy use, weed control, and fertilisation). These factors were also used in different studies evaluating agricultural land use intensity58,59. A detailed calculation is included in Supplementary Table S2 online.
*Energy use measured as l fuel per ha and year60. Includes primary tillage, seedbed preparation, sowing, fertilization, spraying, and mechanical weed control. Sowing (all systems) and mulching (except C-NT) were included as additional management operations for the cover crop treatments.
**Supply of plant available N in the organic systems is calculated as in the equation (1). It is assumed that all mineral-N supplied to the conventional system is available to plants.
***Pesticide measured as kg applied active substances per ha.
§Relative scaling of the input factors among the production systems was calculated relative to the highest value (=1), for the corresponding impact factor.