Contributing to the transition towards robust, multi-performance systems

The volatility of prices, the vagaries of the climate and the resistance of pests… Current systems and the optimization of practices for each crop, individually, are showing their limitations in the face of these challenges. The solution? A move towards robust, multi-performance cropping systems. Terres Inovia is helping farmers to make this transition, by providing useful operational resources for the design and implementation of cropping systems adapted to their needs, the local context and valorizing soil fertility and the natural regulation of pests.

Contact : Stéphane Cadoux

s.cadoux@terresinovia.fr

systemes de culture

Our goals

To analyze, at the local scale, by production area, the strengths and weaknesses of the cropping systems in place, the expectations of farmers, and to identify on-farm innovations.

To generate operational knowledge, to co-design and evaluate innovations contributing to the robustness and multi-performance of cropping systems.

To contribute to the transition on farms, by developing tools to support farmers and agricultural advisers, who are trained in strategic support at the scale of the cropping system.

Our main actions

Phyto-Sol: sustainable reduced tillage cropping systems

Terres Inovia, in collaboration with many partners in the different regions, is developing and working on new weed control strategies.

The work carried out in recent years has made it possible, in particular, to propose interesting weeding programs for post-emergence rapeseed, adjustable according to the situation of each plot.

Legumes and flax, sometimes in orphan use, mobilize our institute, both on the technical side (evaluation of new herbicides, new programs or associations, mechanical weeding, mixed weeding) and on the regulatory side (extension of use, 120 day exemptions). Special flora such as ambrosia, datura or perennials also mobilize our teams.

Finally, monitoring and even evaluating new technologies are an integral part of our project on integrated weed management. Since 2017, Terres Inovia has also been associated with Acta, Arvalis-Institut du Plant, ITB and Fnams in an expert unit that works to identify the difficulties and technical dead ends related to the withdrawal of glyphosate in order to search for alternative solutions. If tillage emerges as the main lever, this regulatory change leads to profound changes in practices and operations.

In 2019 and 2020, elements of expertise were provided to INRAE ​​and ANSES as part of the comparative analysis, which should lead to restrictions in 2020. The work of the institute is still continuing around these alternatives.

 

Innovative cropping systems in the Syppre project

Syppre is an inter-institute project that began in 2013, co-piloted by Terres Inovia, Arvalis-Institut du vegetale and Itb. It aims to build the cropping systems of tomorrow that will reconcile productivity, profitability and environmental excellence. It is based on five territories (deep silts of Picardy, chalk lands of Champagne, clay-limestone soils of Berry, Lauragais clay-limestone hillsides and humus-bearing lands of Béarn) where observatories of the systems practiced by farmers, 'experimentation with innovative cropping systems, and networks of farmers supported in the development of their systems on the farm. The approaches, tools and knowledge developed by this co-innovation approach, as well as the sharing of experience, aim to promote the large-scale transition to multi-performance systems. A website dedicated to the Syppre project (www.syppre.fr) was opened in 2019. The results and knowledge generated by the project are presented there, with the ambition of becoming more widely a reference site for sharing information. actionable knowledge to promote the transition to robust and multi-performance systems.

 

Support tools to favor on-farm innovation

Due to a changing and uncertain context and the great variability of the effect of agro-ecological strategies depending on the situation, it is preferable to help farmers to innovate on their own and to adapt to their context. To this end, Terres Inovia is coordinating the “Tools” project. Objective: to provide each farmer with the tools and methods to imagine, test, evaluate and adapt by himself and continuously innovations to be introduced into his cropping system. This project, coordinated by Terres Inovia, made it possible to build and test several dashboards, in particular "Obtaining a robust rapeseed" in Berry and "Succeeding sunflowers in conservation agriculture to control erosion" in the Gers. Each of these dashboards visualizes the key states to be obtained in a cultivated field to achieve the objectives defined by the farmer, identifies the cause and effect links between these key states and specifies the relevant techniques to achieve them. Other dashboards are being built such as "Transition to Conservation Agriculture". Observation methods that are easy to implement, making it possible to feed these dashboards, are being developed in parallel.