CARBON BASED HORTICULTURE AND SUSTAINABILITY

Work to utilise composted agricultural and community wastes in developing improved production systems for horticultural crops began in 1996 and in 2001, a major vegetable project focussing on coarse sandy soils of the Swan Coastal Plain, commenced.
Results confirm that the use of compost creates net economic benefits from improvement to marketable yield, reduced fertiliser and irrigation requirements and other management related benefits.
Identified improvements to soil physical and biological properties from the use of compost indicate that there are also potentially significant environmental and social benefits.
These improvements largely result from improvements to soil organic matter and hence the use of the term ‘carbon based horticulture’. Compost use will enable vegetable and other horticultural industries to achieve greater economic, as well as environmental and social sustainability and will elevate awareness of horticulture’s importance to the future development of sustainable community and society.

International Symposium on Harnessing the Potential of Horticulture in the Asian-Pacific Region

R. Paulin, P. O´Malley, K. Wilkinson, T. Flavel

Compost, horticulture, vegetables, crop performance, organic matter, management, sustainability

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2005.694.28