This dissertation was written as part of the MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Business at the International Hellenic University.
Over the past decades, the industrial model of agriculture by certain intensive farming practices, such as monoculture, has led to excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers, resulted in soil degradation. This literature-based study aims at creating a database regarding the most important soil botanical organic amendments commonly used in sustainable agriculture. Particular importance and preference has been given in bibliographic sources have been written from 2012 onward.
In this dissertation, beyond the extensive reference in the beneficial effects of soil botanical organic amendments in improving and maintaining soil fertility, plant productivity as well as crop yield and quality, green manures, cover crops, composts, plant residues and various plant by-products contain secondary metabolites which are identified and appear remarkable activity against soil-borne diseases mostly caused by fungi and nematodes. Furthermore, all the cases, reported in bibliography, were recorded with particular attention to the application rates of organic amendments, the target parasite, the effect of organic amendments upon parasites, and the active ingredients of organic amendments.
Organic amendments mainly derived from plant species of Brassicaceae and Asteraceae families, neem (Azadirachta indica), seaweeds and composts seem to appear the most effective results of nematicidal, fungicidal and herbicidal activity because of their active substances they contain such as glucosinolates in Brassicaceae species which can cause inhibition or even suppresion of parasites emergence.
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