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Continuous usage of cover crops in citrus: influence in seedbank, weeds, and soil's chemical characteristicsIn the last few years, the consumers, especially those of the external market, have become more and more interested in food security, namely on what it refers to the means of production. This fact has motivated the search for alternatives of low environmental impact, and one of these is the use cover crops or green manure. In this context the current research aimed the evaluation of the influence of continuous usage of plant cover in citrus orchards over the patterns of infestation and weed seed bank, as well as the soil's chemical characteristics. The experiment was carried out in a "Pêra" orange orchard (Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck) at the experimental area of Escola Superior de Agricultura "Luiz de Queiroz", University of São Paulo (USP), Piracicaba, SP. The experiment was conducted in random blocks in a 4 x 2 x 2 factorial scheme. The treatment consisted on the combination of four cover crop, two kinds of mowers and two kinds of manure. The cover crops used were lab-lab Dolichos lablab L., Cajanus cajan L. Millsp cv IAPAR 43, Pennisetum glaucum L. Leeke and natural infestation of the orange orchard. Lateral and conventional mowers were used, and the fertilization was made on inter row as well as on the projection of the trees' crowns. The following facts were observed from the data that were gathered: the plant cover produced by natural infestation and D.lablab contributed significantly for the reduction of the weeds' population, and thus having an effect on the seed bank; at the citrus tree's rows the dicotyledonous plants had higher relative frequence and relative importance than monocotiledonous plants; the continuous displacement of mulch natural infestation increased pH, organic matter (OM) and magnesium (Mg); the continuous displacement of mulch D.lablab increased phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) levels and base saturation (V%). Thus, we can conclude that D.lablab can be a promising alternative as cover crop in citrus cultivation.

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There is a widely recognized need to reduce human activity's impact on the environment. Many industries of the leather and textile sector (LTI), being aware of producing a significant amount of residues (Keßler et al. 2021; Liu et al. 2021), are adopting measures to reduce the impact of their processes on the environment, starting with a more comprehensive characterization of the chemical risk associated with the substances commonly used in LTI. The present work contributes to these efforts by compiling and toxicologically annotating the substances used in LTI, supporting a continuous learning strategy for characterizing their chemical safety. This strategy combines data collection from public sources, experimental methods and in silico predictions for characterizing four different endpoints: CMR, ED, PBT, and vPvB. We present the results of a prospective validation exercise in which we confirm that in silico methods can produce reasonably good hazard estimations and fill knowledge gaps in the LTI chemical space. The proposed protocol can speed the process and optimize the use of resources including the lives of experimental animals, contributing to identifying potentially harmful substances and their possible replacement by safer alternatives, thus reducing the environmental footprint and impact on human health.