Sustainability assessment of cover crop termination by integrated LCA approach in different organic horticultural cropping systems

Diversification can improve agricultural system resilience. In relation to this, the aim of this study was to compare the environmental sustainability of cover crop introduction in spring-summer and autumn-winter organic horticultural systems by life cycle assessment (LCA). In 2 years, two field trials were carried out in the Mediterranean area, investigating systems with tomato and cauliflower cultivation. Cover crops introduced as break crops and terminated with a no-till system (NT) were compared with a conventional green manure system (GM) and with a no cover crop system (CT). The environmental impact, calculated both per hectare and per kg production, was estimated using LCA, while the C-CO₂ balance was calculated as the difference between total C-CO₂ stored in soil at the end of the cropping cycles. A carbon footprint analysis was also performed. Although the management of the cover crops released CO₂ impacting the environment, when considering the C-CO₂ stocks, the balances of the cover crops systems were better than in CT. In particular, the NT resulted in the most environmentally friendly and efficient system. In detail, on average of the two trials, the NT systems registered a net CO₂ eq. ha⁻¹ balance of +29.9% and +96.06%, compared to the GM and CT systems, respectively. This study also revealed that the C-CO₂ balance approach, combined with the introduction of both area and productivity functional units, could be an appropriate methodology to assess the sustainability of agricultural systems, thus helping farmers and decision makers in the choice of different techniques and management strategies.