Success Story

The Roberto Bevere’s Farm is located in Lesina, a small village in the province of Foggia (Apulia region, Italy). The farm has a surface area of 36 ha with 5 people as permanent staff. They are cultivating the following crops: durum wheat (Triticum durum L.), common wheat (Triticum durum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), and field bean (Vicia faba subsp. Minor). Nowadays they don’t apply no-tillage management as they have had some problems with the contractor that was carrying out fieldwork.  However, they apply a two-year crop rotation, alternating legumes, and cereals. In the past, they carried out no-tillage management in the overall field.

The no-tillage practice has been used from 2014 to 2019. They started to apply no-tillage because they are curious about the innovations. He did not receive training on soil conservative practices, but they have studied in some books. The farmer did not receive any financial support to start soil conservative practices. After the application of the soil conservative practices, he experienced a lower workload and lower costs, especially in terms of fuel, but also an improvement in terms of fertility. On the other hand, he obtained a lower grain yield with respect to previous years, but the lower yield was balanced by the lower costs for cultivation. Altogether, the farmer was very happy to apply soil conservative practices and in the future, he wants to re-apply with no-tillage management because of the high costs of conventional agricultural operations.

LABELS: Italy, crop-production, crop-rotation