Intercropping is defined as the growth of two or more crops simultaneously in the same field during a growing season and is the practical application of ecological principles such as diversity, crop interaction and other natural regulation mechanisms. This technique has been found to have many advantages, mainly related to the complementary use of environmental resources by the component crops. Nitrogen fixing legumes can be included to a greater extent in arable cropping systems via intercrops. Legumes contribute to maintaining the soil fertility via nitrogen fixation, which is increased in intercrops due to the more competitive character of the cereal for soil inorganic N. Intercropping of grain legumes and cereals therefore offers an opportunity to increase the input of fixed nitrogen into agroecosystems without compromising cereal N use, yield level and stability.
Main project aims: - Identify benefits and obstacles for the use of intercropping of arable crops in the EU in order to resolve both the technical and socio-economic aspects.
- Increase the knowledge on the multifunctional role of intercropping: production level and stability, resource use, environmental impacts, and product quality of intercrops.
- To develop a simulation model for modelling grain legume-cereal intercrops. This can be used in the design of intercrops and strategic planning of cropping systems with intercrops.
Studying the growth of intercrops more closely through the inclusion of data from sequential harvests (April-August) give a more detailed picture of how interspecies dynamics change over time, and of the effect of initial conditions on competitive interaction and output of intercrops.
Through identical joint experimentation using two intercrop designs (replacement and additive) on 5 different sites around Europe over three years is expected to result in unique mechanistic knowledge about interspecies competitive interactions. Increased appreciation of competition as a process could potentially enable us to develop intercropping systems that to a greater degree utilise the advantages of interactions between crop species. The importance of interactions among plants in determining the structure and dynamics of plant communities is widely recognized, however, the mechanism involved in relation to agronomic benefits still remains unsolved.
Selected publications from the project:
- Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Gooding, M, Ambus, P, Corre-Hellou, G, Crozat, Y, Dahlmann, C, Dibet, A, von Fragstein, P, Pristeri, A, Monti, M and Jensen, ES (2009) Pea-barley intercropping and short-term subsequent crop effects across European organic cropping conditions. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 85, 141-155
- Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Gooding, M, Ambus, P, Corre-Hellou, G, Crozat, Y, Dahlmann, C, Dibet, A, von Fragstein, P, Pristeri, A, Monti, M and Jensen, ES (2009) Pea-barley intercropping for efficient symbiotic N2-fixation, soil N acquisition and use of other nutrients in European organic cropping systems. Field Crops Research 113, 64-71
- Launay, M, Brisson, N, Satgera, S, Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Corre-Hellou, G, Kasynovad, E, Ruske, R, Jensen, ES and Gooding MJ (2009) Exploring options for managing strategies for pea–barley intercropping using a modeling approach. European Journal of Agronomy 31, 85-98
- Gooding, MJ, Kasynova, E, Ruske, R, Hauggaard-Nielsen, H, Jensen, ES, Dahlmann, C, von Fragstein, P, Dibet, A, Corre-Hellou, G, Crozat, Y, Pristeri, A, Romeo, M, Monti, M, and Launay, M (2007) Intercropping with pulses to concentrate nitrogen and sulphur in wheat. Journal of Agricultural Science 145, 469–479.
Participants:
INTERCROP involves a multidisciplinary consortium of 7 partners from 5 European countries: University of Reading, UK; (M.J.Gooding@reading.ac.uk); Ecole Supérieure d’Agriculture d’Angers, France (g.hellou@groupe-esa.com); Kassel University, Germany (pvf@wiz.uni-kassel.de); INRA Avignon, France (brisson@avignon.inra.fr); Università “Mediterranea” di Reggio Calabria, Italy (montim@unirc.it); Aarhus University, Denmark (Sigurd.boisen@agrsci.dk) and Risø DTU (hnie@risoe.dtu.dk)
Role:
Risø DTU is coordinator of the project and workpackage manager for the activities dealing with nutrient acquisition, nitrogen (N) loss and N content in the following crop. All 15N analysis from all partners is processed at Risø DTU using 5-10 mg subsamples of finely ground material using an elemental analyser (CE Instruments EA 1110) coupled in continuous flow mode to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer (Finnigan MAT DeltaPlus).
Resources:
INTERCROP is a project funded by the European Community under the 5th Framework Programme of RTD, Quality of Life specific programme, Key Action 5 - Sustainable Agriculture (QLK5-2002-02352)
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