Suchergebnisse

This is the Editorial to a Special Issue Intercropping Systems for Sustainable Agriculture. This Special Issue contains five papers originating from five different continents (Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia), and covering (i) the grain yield stability of various barley–pea and wheat–faba bean mixtures grown in seven experimental field trials (locations) across Europe; (ii) the evaluation of three cover crop treatments on cover crop biomass, soil cover, plant density, and soybean yield in the northwestern Corn Belt in the USA; (iii) the performance of signal grass (Urochloa decumbens) pastures intercropped with a legume (calopo, Calopogonium mucunoides) in Brazil; (iv) the impact of intercropping maize with potato on yield, water use, energy output, and net economic return on the Loess Plateau in China; and (v) a review of the main existing metrics used in the scientific literature to assess intercropping systems at large scale and in an Australian perspective. ; The compilation of this Special Issue was supported financially by the DIVERSify project, a grant from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 727284.

Short rotation coppice (SRC) systems can play a role as feedstock for bioenergy supply contributing to EU energy and climate policy targets. A scenario depicting intensive arable crop cultivation in a homogeneous landscape (lacking habitat structures) was compared to a scenario including SRC cultivation on 20 % of arable land. A range of indicators was selected to assess the consequences of SRC on soil, water and biodiversity, using data from the Rating-SRC project (Sweden and Germany). The results of the assessment were presented using spider diagrams. Establishment and use of SRC for bioenergy has both positive and negative effects. The former include increased carbon sequestration and reduced GHG emissions as well as reduced soil erosion, groundwater nitrate and surface runoff. SRC can be used in phytoremediation and improves plant and breeding bird biodiversity (exceptions: grassland and arable land species) but should not be applied in dry areas or on soils high in toxic trace elements (exception: cadmium). The scenario-based analysis was found useful for studying the consequences of SRC cultivation at larger scales. Limitations of the approach are related to data requirements and compatibility and its restricted ability to cover spatial diversity and dynamic processes. The findings should not be generalised beyond the representativeness of the data used.

Cereal-legume intercropping can increase yields, reduce fertilizer input and improve soil quality compared with pure culture. Designing intercropping systems requires the integration of plant species trait selection with choice of crop configuration and management. Crop growth models can facilitate the understanding and prediction of the interactions between plant traits, crop configuration and management. However, currently no existing crop growth model has been calibrated and tested for cereal-legume intercrops throughout Europea. We calibrated the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) for pure cultures of wheat and faba bean using data from Dutch field trials, and determined the phenological parameters to simulate pure cultures and intercrops from seven field experiments across Europe. APSIM successfully reproduced aboveground dry matters and, for wheat only, grain yields in pure cultures. In intercrops, APSIM systematically overestimated the aboveground dry matter and grain yield of faba bean and underestimated those of wheat. APSIM was reasonably capable of simulating plant heights in pure cultures, but respectively overestimated and underestimated the height of faba bean and wheat in intercrops. In order to simulate wheat-faba bean intercrops better, APSIM should be improved regarding the calculation of biomass partitioning to grains in faba bean and of height growth in both species. ; HNCB, MW, AJK, EA, ÁMV, LPK, ACN, CS, ST, and GV received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 727284, project DIVERSify: Designing InnoVative plant teams for Ecosystem Resilience and agricultural Sustainability, https://www.plant-teams.eu/. WvdW received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 727217, project ReMIX: Redesigning European cropping systems based on species MIXtures, https://www.remix-intercrops.eu.