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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Analysis of relationships between farming practices, weed flora and crop production

subject

description

International audience; Quantitative data on the potential losses of crop yield due to weeds is limited. Approaches toquantify weed damages considered only individual weed species, and have not included thecompounding of effects at the community level. Moreover they did not integrate the influence ofagricultural practices and environmental variables on the weed-crop relationship. Here weanalysed a big data sets to study relations between crop management, weed communities’indicators and crop yield and then develop path analysis models to disentangle the confoundingeffects of cropping system on weeds and crop production. Flora surveys (N= 651) were performedfrom 2006 to 2013 on 150 fields in the Fénay study site (Dijon, eastern France). Farmers wereinterviewed to know their cropping systems (N=564) and recorded their yield (N=564). The maincrops were winter wheat (195 fields, 227 flora surveys), winter barley (94, 110), oilseed rape (92,103) spring barley (53, 63) and mustard (45, 56). Data were also collected on the 11 others cropsbut on less fields (<25 fields, <27 flora surveys for each crop). Pearson correlations wereperformed between quantitative variables (farming practices, weed flora indicators) and yields.