Conveners
Diversification in crop production
- Tao Song
- Fred Stoddard
1. Introduction
There is an urgent need to redesign cropping systems with the challenge to maintain high productivity, reduce inputs and their associated environmental impacts as well as mitigate climate change. Crop diversification is a key lever to meet this challenge. It means increasing the diversity of crops in time and space using strategies such as rotation extension, multiple...
Agricultural diversification is useful for agronomic, environmental, and dietary reasons, but its consequences for productivity are debated. We conducted a global meta-analysis of 226 field trials, and found (as previous meta-analyses did) that intercropping, i.e. species mixture, leads to substantial land savings over single crops when the objective is to produce a diversified set of crop...
Nitrogen (N) losses from agroecosystems threatens the environment. Regions with high livestock densities, such as Brittany (France), are particularly sensitive to this issue. In addition, N losses are expected to increase under the rising intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. Silvopastoral systems, i.e., combination of trees and pastures, are a promising solution to prevent N...
- Introduction
Diversification practices in perennial-based cropping systems (e.g. agroforestry, intercropping, etc.) are promoted for their global positive effects on the agroecosystems’ performances at the plot scale (Beillouin et al., 2019). In Thailand, intercropping with various crops is often adopted in smallholder rubber plantations during the first four years, to cope with the...
Introduction.
Biodiversity-based cropping systems are a promising option for agriculture to meet socio-environmental issues under climate change. Yet, the levers that could be employed to establish a system based on biodiversity, such as crop diversification, require a degree of coordination with the underlying agroecosystem processes and the specific requirements of farmers. The...
