Balance de macronutrientes y materia orgánica en el suelo de agrosistemas hortícolas con manejo integrado y ecológico.

The intensification of agricultural production over the last forty years has strongly increased the amount of food obtained, although it has also had as a consequence a high environmental cost. Eutrophication and biodiversity losses, nitrate leaching and groundwater pollution, degradation of soil structure, uncontrolled diseases and pesticides contamination are common problems associated with conventional cropping systems. For this reason, it is important to consider the convenience of using management practices compatibles with the sustainable use of resources. Two more sustainable ways of production are organic farming and more recently integrated production organic. This work was included in the large-scale EU project VEGINECO, which focused on research into horticultural systems to develop, test, evaluate and compare prototypes of integrated and ecological vegetable farming systems. The main objective of this study was to calculate simplify macronutrients (N, P, K, Mg) and organic matter balances for integrated and organic systems during three years in a crop rotation. These results could give an important information to improve fertilization programmes, adjusting the inputs to the real nutrient requirements and avoiding the common surpluses in intensive agriculture. Furthermore, these additionally inputs increase unnecessary costs to the farmers and they are an important focus of environmental pollution. For this reason, it has been consider the convenience of using nutrient balances as environmental indicators and as tools for nutrient management. Additionally, these theoretic balances were compared to the evolution of available nutrient reserves in soil systems to prove if there is any direct relation between them. This study could be very useful to get further information about patterns of respectful agriculture, due to with the results of crop production included in this experience, moreover we can evaluate the effects of the management in production, we can determinate the absorption of nutrients on some species of vegetables in different areas of Valencian Community, as advisory criteria for the nutrient necessities in crops in integrated and organic systems.