## Materials and Methods
### Experimental Field Trials, Treatments, and Measurements  
The research was carried out during the 2016-2017 cropping season in two different experimental fields. The first one consists in a long-term field trial in organic horticulture, which had been planned to adapt horticultural systems to unfavorable climatic conditions (in particular, extreme rainfall events during autumn and winter periods). In this experimental field, integrated strategies are combined, i.e., soil surface shaping, crop rotations, introduction of agro-ecological services crops (ASC), ASC termination techniques, and fertilization with organic products [4]. The base layer is the soil surface shaping in a \"ridge system\". Cash crops are planted both on the top of each raised bed 2.5 m wide (ridges) and in the 2.5 m flat areas (strips) between them. The crop rotation is designed to cultivate the cash crop on the ridges and the ASC in the strips during the winter-rainy period of the year. Cover crops are used to prevent soil erosion and provide N to the system via biological fixation, since on the top of the ridges, a leguminous cover crop is intercropped (as living mulch) in the winter as a vegetable crop and maintained as a ground cover. During the winter-rainy period, in the flat soil strips, mixtures of ASC species of different botanical families are cultivated between two consecutive spring-summer cash crops. The used ASC termination methods (before the subsequent cash crops transplant) are green manure (in which the cover crop is chopped and plowed at the end of flowering) vs. cover crop biomass flattening by an in-line roller-crimper, in which the mulch covers the soil surface until the vegetable crop harvest [4]. Finally, the last layer consists of organic fertilization, which is implemented into further horizontal strips, by using commercial and experimental amendments. The second experimental field was conceived to verify the hypothesis that the use of the in-line roller crimping technology for ASC termination will improve the agronomical performances of the organically managed vegetable cropping systems. A two-year field experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of ASC termination on tomato, by comparing green manure vs. roller-crimper, NO ASC (control) and plastic mulch (positive control) treatments. Another variability factor consists of three different fertilization treatments (i. on-farm organic fertilizer, ii. commercial organic fertilizer, and iii. unfertilized control). The experimental design of each field trial was a strip plot with three replications, allowing the ability to calculate the standard deviation of the variables. In the present research, the following three management systems adopting different agro-ecological approach levels are considered, which have been extrapolated from the two above-defined experimental field trials (Table 1):  
1. ECO, an organic system with the full implementation of the described agro-ecological strategies, from the first experimental field. The cultivation area (1 ha) was divided into two parts (0.5 ha ridge furrow and 0.5 ha flat strip) and crops were cultivated both on the ridges and in the strips. On the ridges, with the clover as a living mulch, cauliflower during the winter period (transplanted on 20 October 2016 and harvested on 21 March 2017) and tomato crop during the spring-summer (transplanted on 24 April 2017 and harvested during August 2017) were cultivated. In the strips, the ASC (80% vetch-20% oats) were sown in November 2016 and incorporated as break crops during the following spring. Zucchini, during the spring-summer (transplanted on 27 April 2017 and harvested during July 2017), and lettuce, during the late summer-autumn (transplanted on 31 August 2017 and harvested on 26 October 2017), were then cultivated. A composted anaerobic digestate from cattle manure was used as fertilizer (i.e., on-farm organic fertilizer). The phytosanitary management followed the organic farming rules.