"Cover crops (CC) and soil health and climate change adaptation in semi-arid woody crops"
European agreement number : EJP-SOIL grant agreement N°862695
NCBR registration number : EJP SOIL/II/4/SANCHOSTHIRST/2024
EJP Soil SANCHOsTHIRST : overall perspective
Consortium of the EJP SOIL SANCHOsTHIRST
The SANCHOsTHIRST project is carried out by seven teams - from Spain (two teams), France (three teams), Italy, and Poland:
Italy
Scientific project
This SANCHOsTHIRST project is based on four pillars:
Pillar 1
Deepen the knowledge of agro-ecosystem functions in woody crops with Traditional tillage (TT) and vegetation cover (VC). For this purpose, farms with soils managed by different practices will be used to test the following functions: Carbon sequestration will be carried out with an innovative approach, considering the source and dynamics of SOM, inferred by 13C and 14C analysis. This approach will reveal the age of SOC at different soil depths, providing important insights into C sequestration efficiency. The stability of SOM will be inferred by visible spectroscopy analysis for determining the aromaticity of the degree of maturation.
Microbiological activity plays a crucial role in C dynamics. It is related to ecosystem services such as gene pool (provisioning) and nutrient cycling (supporting). The effects of agronomic practices have received very little attention in this regard. β-glucosidase activity, linked to fungi and bacteria, will be used for this purpose.
The water content changes (regulating services), the most important reason for rejecting the use of VC, will be considered, studying the effects of VC on soil moisture, and water status in vines and olive trees.
Yield in vineyards and olive trees (provisioning services) with and without VC will be measured.
Pillar 2
A global perspective of ecosystem services provided by VC will be obtained by the identification and quantification of the ecosystem services indicators and the development of a composite indicator through a fuzzy logic procedure.
Pillar 3
Improving Remote sensing tools by considering disturbing factors that have been found to affect the spectral response (texture, roughness, iron oxide compounds). This research will help to reduce the uncertainty of SOC and water content predicted by models obtained with satellite imagery. Monitoring soil conditions will be performed in 30 to 40 active farms including field sampling campaigns and Sentinel-2 acquisitions. Normalized spectral indices; geostatistical methods; regression model approaches, and thermal and radar backscattering models will be used.
Pillar 4
Temporal modeling to describe future scenarios of doing business as usual will be done using the STICS (SimulateurmulTIdisciplinaire pour les Cultures Standard) model, although requiring many parameters it has already been tested under different climates and managements. Experimental farms will provide information for modeling.
Strong emphasis will be placed on raising awareness and encouraging its adoption. Over the project, a high-quality video documentary will be produced to be disseminated on different platforms and TV channels in different languages. Sampling, results, and opinions of farmers and researchers will be gathered. The potential and limitations of VC in semi-arid areas will be revealed.
