Netherlands
Location: Langeweg, Netherlands
Arable farm Biotrio
C fri lima en te dly
Kees van Beek is one of the owners of the organic farm Biotrio. This is an arable farm in Langeweg in the South of the Netherlands. The farm, with 220 hectares of arable land, is owned by three farmers who combined their farms in 1999. Biotrio grows herbs, carrots, spinach, potatoes, cabbages, onions, cereals and alfalfa. The soil is a clay soil. The yearly rainfall is 850mm and the average temperature is 10,3° Celcius. Climate friendly measure: seasonal controlled traffic farming Since 1999 biotrio has started experimenting with a system of so called seasonal controlled traffic farming. This system uses permanent traffic lanes for all operations other than harvesting and primary tillage. Nowadays Biotrio uses tractors with a 3.15 m track width and equipment with a 6.3 m width. These machines are all equipped with a RTK satellite system which makes it possible to follow the tracks very accurately. The main benefits with respect to the GHG emissions have effect on the laughing gas volatilization. With the applied measure there is less soil compaction. As a result of this there’s more air in the soil which decreases the volatilization of laughing gas. Because Biotrio ploughs the land less often than before also the diesel use went down.
----------------------------------------------Motivation of the farmer For organic farming it’s very important to have good soil preparation. The main motivation for the farmer was to improve the soil quality and to ease the weed management. “By using a controlled traffic farming it is possible to get into the field much sooner than with a conventional system. “ Mr Van Beek thinks that by showing that the controlled traffic farming system has a lot of advantages works the best to convince colleagues about the system.
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