Speaker
Description
Introduction
The side effects of chemical inputs in agriculture raise concerns and necessitate the exploration of options for a transformation in cropping systems for enhanced efficiency and sustainability. Intercropping is the cultivation of multiple crop species in the same field at the same time and has multiple ecological advantages, e.g related to nutrient capture and disease control (Weih et al., 2022). Nitrogen (N) plays a vital role in maize growth, significantly influencing crop yield, but intercropping with a legume can mitigate the requirement for N input. There is little experience in Europe with intercropping maize with legumes (but see Wang et al., 2023). This study aims to examine maize yield in an intercropping system with soybean, comparing it to monocropping within an organic farming framework with low or no fertilizer input.
Materials and methods
We conducted a field experiment on organically managed fields of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. The experimental site is located in the Marchfeld region, about 5 km east of Vienna in Raasdorf (48° 14' N, 16° 35' E). The Marchfeld climate is characterized by hot, dry summers with little dew and cold winters with little snow. The long-term average (2000-2020) annual precipitation is 524 mm; and the average annual temperature is 10.9 °C. The soil is classified as Calcaric Phaeozem. The maize-soybean strip intercropping experiment was designed as a randomized complete block design with four replicates, and the plot size was 60 m2 (6 m x 10 m). Soybean and maize were sown simultaneously by machine on 20 June 2023, with a uniform row spacing of 50 cm across all plots. The experimental treatments compared two cropping systems: monocrops of maize or soybean, and strip intercropping with a pattern of three rows of maize and three rows of soybean (a total of 12 rows of 1.5 m each), crossed with two fertilization levels: fertilizer and unfertilized. The organic fertilizer used in the experiment was "Sedumin hair meal pellets N 14%" at a rate of 190 kg N/ha in the fertilized treatment. Maize plants were harvested in October 2023 and seed yield and relative yield were calculated after drying.
Results and discussion
Maize yield was significantly higher in the monocrop than in the intercrop with soybean in both the fertilized and unfertilized treatments (P<0.05), and in both cases, the maize yield in intercropping was 71% of the yield in the sole crop (Table 1). Observed yields were lower at zero fertilizer input than with fertilization, but the fertilization effect was not significant in an analysis of variance with cropping system and fertilization as factors (P>0.05). Thus, fertilization did not significantly increase yield under the conditions of the study. The relative maize yield in intercropping was substantially higher (71%) than would have been expected on the basis of its proportion in the mixture (50%) indicating that intercropping favoured the growth of maize plants. The results highlight the potential of intercropping within organic farming as effective models for reducing input requirements.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program in the framework of the IntercropValuES, grant number 101081973. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or REA. Neither the European Union nor the REA can be held responsible for them.
References
Wang, Z.S., Dong, B., Stomph, T.J., Evers, J.B., van der Putten, P.E.L., Ma, H.H., Missale, R., van der Werf, W. (2023). Temporal complementarity drives species combinability in strip intercropping in the Netherlands. Field Crops Research, 291, 108757.
Weih, M., Mínguez, M. I., Tavoletti, S. (2022). Intercropping systems for sustainable agriculture. Agriculture, 12(2), 291.
| Keywords | Cropping systems; Fertilization; Productivity; Organic management |
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