Increasing Crop Rotation Diversity Improves Agronomic, Economic, and Environmental Performance of Organic Grain Cropping Systems at the USDA‐ARS Beltsville Farming Systems Project

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in organic grain crop production, there is inadequate information regarding agronomic, economic and environmental performance of organically produced grain crops in the US, especially in the Coastal Plain soils of the mid-Atlantic region. The Beltsville Farming Systems Project (FSP), a long-term cropping systems experiment, was established in Maryland in 1996 to address these needs. The project includes three organic and two conventional cropping systems (Table 1). It is the only long-term project in the US that includes three organic cropping systems that differ in crop rotation length and complexity. Research results from this project show that increasing cropping system diversity improves agronomic, economic, and environmental performance of organic grain cropping systems.