Designing intercropping in the Western Europe

Background

Under organic agricultural conditions in Western Europe, intercropping has been studied with low resource inputs. However, little research has been conducted at conventional input levels. In this study, I evaluated the viability of six species combinations as narrow strip intercrops under conventional management conditions in the Netherlands. 

Project description

Current agricultural systems should be improved by reducing inputs while maintaining or increasing yields, resulting in more efficient use of resources. Intercrops made of multiple species overlapping a portion of their growth cycles offer the chance to improve yields with decreased resource inputs.

While some species combinations have been studied with low resource inputs under Western-European organic farming conditions, few possible species combinations have been studied at conventional input levels. Therefore, there is a lack of knowledge regarding how intercropping systems should be developed for conventional growers in Western Europe. This raises the question of whether intercropping could be tailored to conventional production practices.

In this project, a two-year field experiment is conducted in the Netherlands. All six binary combinations of maize (Zea mays L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), faba bean (Vicia faba L.), and pea (Pisum sativum L.) are investigated as narrow strip (1.5 m wide) intercrops for their productivity. Modeling and field obtained data are used to assess the light and nitrogen use efficiency of each species combination. The output of this project can help with species selection and configuration design of plausible intercrops in the future. 

Results

Relay intercrops comprising a later sown maize and one of the other three species had relative yield total greater than one whereas simultaneously sown intercrops comprising two species other than maize had relative yield total close to one.