Abstract:
The increasing social consciousness about the need for environmental-friendly agro-products and
services has motivated the development of sustainable and organic agriculture. Cultivated lands
compose a patchy landscape where conventional, organic and conservation agriculture are
intermixed. Sustainable management (SA) in vineyards aims to improve and sustain productivity
without sacrificing profits by minimum mechanical soil disturbances, permanent organic soil
cover and use of advanced biological controls of pests and weeds. Organic management (OA)
avoids using herbicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, which are commonly used in
conventional farming (CF).These approaches rely on bacterial and fungal mobilization of
nutrients from the soil to the root system controlled by microbial. As plant productivity is
secondarily related to protozoa, we aim to determine the effect of vineyard management kinds on
soil protozoa community. We expected to find higher protists' diversity in sustainable agriculture
correlated to the increase in soil organic matter. All soil managements impacted positively the 8
Classes that count for 70% of the protists while having a variable impact on other dominant
Classes and Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (representing genus and species).Contrary
to what was expected, protozoa diversity was higher in the CF (H= 4.34) followed by SA (H=
4.04) and OA (H=4.035).Water availability: C/N and salinity were the main factors explaining
MOTU’s variances. We concluded that farming management promoted the incorporation of
organic matter into soil, favouring higher diversity of cultivated soils in comparison to the
control one. |
