Developing new cropping systems – which innovative techniques are required?

The agricultural sector is faced with sweeping changes arising from various challenges of economic, ecological and social nature. With a persistent prolongation of the recent technical development path, these challenges cannot be mastered in future. Therefore, it is necessary to put the plant cultivation system as well as the for operational design necessary processes under close scrutiny to achieve the demanded sustainable intensification of agricultural production. Against this backdrop, this requirement profile for a plant production in the future is defined, the resultant challenges formulated and individual aspects of an alternative production system are considered how, with the help of modern techniques, new alternatives in plant production can be explored. The focus therefore is first of all to satisfy the basic necessities of cultivated plants together with superordinate requirements and restriction particularly with regard to structures. This will provide the basis for the required process technologies for a site-specific farm management. This is in contrast with previous practice, by which i. a. the technique development in uniform farm-management leads to the increasing size of fields.