4. Investigating below-ground agrobiodiversity in organic and conventional apple orchard

Author: Evgenia Kostadinova, Vladislav Popov

DOI: n/a

Resume

In order to determine the differences between organic and conventional agrophytocenoses in regards to their input for maintaining and increasing below ground biodiversity, a field study was conducted in the demonstration fields of the Agroecological Center of the Agricultural University in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
The biodiversity of soil geobionts was established for a two year period (2013 2014) by monitoring the changes in environmental parameters conside ring conducted agricultural activities The obtained data were compared with parallel monitoring of a conventional apple orchard. The ecological parameters were higher in all the investigated taxa in the organic orchard