Past Experience Supports Future Choices for Cropping Systems Management: The Italian Long-Term Agro-Ecosystem Experiments (LTAE) through the IC-FAR Project and the Maggnet International Network.

Does the available data from long-term agro-ecosystem experiments (LTAE) provide a useful platform to understand and model the long term dynamics of cropping system functions and services and to assess the cropping systems resilience in response to climate change? What insights can be gained and transformed into agronomic practices by connecting the LTAE managers with the crop modelling research community? What further data are needed for integrating the available LTAE data for enhancing the cropping systems models’ domain? Are the old LTAEs, designed many years ago, still useful to address nowadays cropping system research questions and challenges posed by Climate Change?

The IF-CAR research project (2013-16, www.icfar.it) provided answers to these questions from the analyses of sixteen LTAEs, located in six locations over an N-S transect across Italy. These experiments were originally designed to study the long term effects of different crop management practices on soil organic carbon and nitrogen dynamics and crop yield.

In IC-FAR, LTAE data were harmonized in a database and were used to calibrate several simulation models (DSSAT, EPIC, SALUS, CropSyst, CSS, Cycles, RothC). With the mission of fostering data sharing and collaboration, the IC-FAR database is compatible with international databases (e.g. AgMIP, MACSUR) and is shared with the MAGGnet international network for the mitigation of agricultural greenhouse gases.

The results of this research showed that the LTAE are an invaluable source of information to assess the long-term sustainability of cropping systems. LTAE data coupled with cropping systems simulation models were effectively used to assess the potential of adaptive and mitigation crop management strategies addressing the resilience issues posed by climate change.