# Title of Dataset: --- Reducing pesticides without organic certification? Potentials and limits of an intermediate form of agricultural production A growing number of farmer cooperatives cultivate crops without chemical pesticides, but also without organic certification. How does this intermediate form of agriculture between conventional and organic production function? What are the outcomes of this production form on cropland biodiversity? How does this model contribute to the transition toward more sustainable forms of agriculture? We address these research questions using original data collected in the AgroBioDiv project from the farmers’ cooperative “KraichgauKorn” based in the German State of Baden-Württemberg. This cooperative is a collection of conventional farmers, who refrain from pesticide use during cultivation periods for KraichgauKorn grains, with products being produced without pesticide inputs in the growing season. Our study finds higher levels of weed species biodiversity on KGK cereal fields compared to conventional fields, but lower than organic fields. In addition, more endangered wild species monitored by the State of Baden-Württemberg were found on KGK fields than conventional fields, with organic fields exhibiting the highest presence of endangered flora. We conclude that such kind of enterprises may indeed contribute substantially to a successful transformation towards sustainable agricultural systems. The data sets include a species check list of weeds from arable fields (Suppl. Table 001) used as reference for estimating biodiversity measures in the FEderal State of Baden-Württemberg (Germany). Futher data have been collected for the entire plant diversity of the same region to calculate total plant biodiversity parameters (Suppl. Table 002). Finally, field data from monitored arable fields have been collected and compared to the other reference data sets (Suppl. Table 003). ## Description of the Data and file structure Suppl. Table 001: 80 species list used in our calculations as reference set (txt-file). Suppl. Table 002: Excel-sheet with summarized numbers of plant species found in Baden-Württemberg extracted from the Fedederal-State biodiversity monitoring program hosted at Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart.The data contain geographic data and coordinates as well as species numbers for respective grid cells. Explanation of variables: MTB: code of 1:25.000 geographical explorer map MTB_quadrant: code of quarter of respective MTB Latitude_Quadrant: latitude of center of MTB quadrant Longitude_Quadrant: longitude of center of MTB quadrant no. of accompanying plant species: total number of weed species in respective Quadrant species no. FloraBW: total number of vascular plant species in respective quadrant as explored from flora Baden-Württemberg percentage accompanying plant species: percentage of "no. of accompanying plant species" out of "species no. FloraBW" Suppl. Table 003: Excel sheet with summarized field monitoring results from arable fields. The overview provides geographic coordinates, crop plants grown, and numer of weed spcies found. The second sheet provides detailed field monitoring results for any species found and following an occurence/abundance code according to Braun-Blanquet. Explanation of variables on sheet 1: field: internal code for fields cultivation method: ecol= organic farming; KGK= intermediate (KraichGauKorn) year: year of field inspection and data collection crop: cultivated crop in respective year coordinates: geographic coordinates of field number of species found per field: no. of weed species documented on arable field Explanation of variables on sheet 2: Data from sheet 1 (same variables) are further differentiated according to the different weed species found (summarized on sheet 1 as "number of species found per field"): code used describes abundance and frequencies according to the vegetation scoring scale of Braun-Blanquet (r,+,1,2,3,4,5) ## Sharing/access Information not applying here