Description
Book SynopsisAgronomists and ecologists need each other and can learn from each other: agriculture cannot ignore ecological facts, neither can ecology study and conserve ecosystems without understanding contemporary agriculture. With this intention a symposium was organized on "the ecological implications of contemporary agriculture". Five major groups of problems were discussed, related to major elements of the system, each corresponding to a session of the symposium:
- the soil and its life;
- the plants, especially the unwanted ones;
- the fauna, with emphasis on the control of pests;
- the nutrient cycles and nutrient budgets (the driving force);
- the connecting elements in the rural landscape, related as they are with lotting out.
For each subject (session) two invited papers were presented in combination with a varying number of posters. All these papers were encompassed by the opening and closing lectures, which sketch the societal framework within which a more ecological approach of agriculture has to be worked out.
In this overview the different elements are rearranged and assessed according to four major groups of problems: lotting out, nutrient management, soil treatment, and weed and arthropod control. It is concluded with some comments on the possibilities to realize more ecological approaches in the framework of farming-practice and EC-politics.
Table of ContentsPreface.
Opening lecture: The limits to agriculture.
The substrate: how are we treating the soil?.
When is a plant a weed?.
The increasing need for ecological knowledge in pest control.
Flow of water and nutrients through agro-ecosystems.
Relations between ecosystems in the rural landscape.
Closing lecture
