Effects of Non-Inversion Tillage and Cover Crops on Weed Diversity and Density in Southeastern Romania

Mădălin Radu, Ciprian Bolohan (), Costel Mihalașcu, Andrei Măruțescu, Max John Newbert and Vasileios P. Vasileiadis ()
Additional contact information
Mădălin Radu: Moara Domnească Agricultural Research and Development Didactic Station, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest, 011464 Bucharest, Romania
Ciprian Bolohan: Soil Sciences Department, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest, 011464 Bucharest, Romania
Costel Mihalașcu: Moara Domnească Agricultural Research and Development Didactic Station, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest, 011464 Bucharest, Romania
Andrei Măruțescu: Syngenta Crop Protection AG, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
Max John Newbert: Syngenta Crop Protection AG, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
Vasileios P. Vasileiadis: Syngenta Crop Protection AG, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 13, 1-16

Abstract: Conservation agriculture is increasingly recognized as a sustainable alternative to conventional farming in temperate regions due to its benefits in terms of reducing soil erosion, enhancing water retention, and mitigating climate change. Despite these benefits, these practices are not broadly adopted, partially due to perceived weed management challenges in conservation systems. This paper explores how a conservation system that uses cover crops and non-inversion tillage (chiselling) influences the weed flora abundance and evolution before cover crop termination and over a complete rotation cycle (sunflower–winter wheat–maize–sunflower) in southeastern Romania when compared to conventional tillage (ploughing). Overall, the conservation system significantly reduced weed density by 31%, preserving a higher diversity and evenness ( H′ = 0.75, E = 0.46) by the end of the rotation cycle and an evenly distributed weed community compared to the conventional system, where the opportunistic species Veronica hederifolia exhibited dominance.

Keywords: cover crops; chisel plough; weed density; weed population frequency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/6204/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/6204/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:13:p:6204-:d:1696030

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().