Design and assessment of cropping systems with carrot as main crop in France

In France, the national program Ecophyto aims to reduce by half the use of pesticides, both in agricultural and non-agricultural areas. Considering this goal, carrot, as an important crop with many putative disorders, is a major vegetable to work on. The Dephy Ecophyto Carrot project was created in order to design and assess cropping systems with carrot as a main crop in regards of environmental, economical and social criterias. Introducing a different type of pest and disease control, it aims to evaluate a coherent group of technical choices instead of separated levers of action. After the first year of experimentation, it has already shown promising results regarding pesticides reduction and pest/disease control, but has highlighted the need to keep track of the economical results which are a key to make these systems adopted by the growers on the long term.