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The aim of the ‘Z project’ is to co-design and test a pesticide-free low-input fruit production agroecosystem by reinforcing ecosystem services and to evaluate through multicriteria assessment system’s performance and to analyse ecological processes. Interactions among stakeholders (farmers, advisors, teachers, technicians, researchers etc.), knowledge from various sources and experience feedbacks permitted to co-design a first experimental prototype, a circular orchard that was planted in February 2018. The design of such orchard, i.e. the choice of cultivated and companion plant species and their arrangement within time and space in a ‘pest suppressive’ fruit production area, relies on barrier and dilution effects, push-pull (i.e., repulsive and trap plants), as well as plant-mediated (bottom-up) and natural enemy-mediated (top-down) processes.

This project will be the opportunity to share experiences, approaches, knowledge among case studies but also to propose a ‘playground’ to co-design the whole area of the ‘Z project’ in a consistent supra-plot area embedding territory interactions.

The main participants are : Sylvaine Simon, Aude Alaphilippe, Solène Borne.

The total staff at Gotheron unit is around 23, the orchad team permanent staff is 8.