**Agronomic Performances of Organic Field Vegetables Managed with Conservation Agriculture Techniques: A Study from Central Italy**

**Daniele Antichi 1,\*, Massimo Sbrana 2, Luisa Martelloni 1, Lara Abou Chehade 1, Marco Fontanelli 1, Michele Ra** ff**aelli 1, Marco Mazzoncini 1, Andrea Peruzzi 1 and Christian Frasconi 1**


Received: 19 October 2019; Accepted: 25 November 2019; Published: 27 November 2019

**Abstract:** Organic farming systems are considered not compatible with conservation tillage mainly because of the reliance of conservative systems on herbicides. In this three-year field experiment, we tested the performances of an innovative vegetable organic and conservative system (ORG+) combining the use of cover crops (exploited as either living or dead mulch) and no-till techniques. This system was compared to "business-as-usual" organic farming (ORG) and integrated farming system (INT) based on the same crop sequence: savoy cabbage (*Brassica oleracea* var. sabauda L. cv. Famosa), spring lettuce (*Lactuca sativa* L. cv. Justine), fennel (*Foeniculum vulgare* Mill. Cv. Montebianco), and summer lettuce (*Lactuca sativa* L. cv. Ballerina RZ). The results of crop yield parameters and weed abundance contribute to spotlight potentialities and weaknesses of organic-conservative managemen<sup>t</sup> of field vegetables. In particular, ORG+ caused significant yield depletion for all the crops and revealed suboptimal weed control and N availability. The agroecosystem services provided by the cover crops grown in the ORG+ as dead mulch or living mulch were a ffected by weather conditions and not always resulted in significant crop gain. Nevertheless, interesting results in terms of P availability and reduced N surplus encourage further development of the system targeting more sustainable organic vegetable production.

**Keywords:** sustainable agriculture; climate change mitigation; cabbage; fennel; lettuce; cover crops; green manure; no-till; dead mulch; living mulch; Mediterranean climate
