Table of Contents
- 1 How does intercropping help soil?
- 2 How does intercropping improve soil fertility?
- 3 What are the advantages of growing legumes?
- 4 Does intercropping preserve nutrients?
- 5 Why legumes are intercropped with cereals and sugar crops?
- 6 How do legumes improve soil quality?
- 7 How can legumes check the declining productivity of cereal-based cropping system?
- 8 What is intercropping in agriculture?
How does intercropping help soil?
Intercropping can benefit the soil in several ways. The additional soil cover provided by the second crop helps reduce erosion. The plants help soak up extra water and nutrients. This additional “pull” of the nutrients can help reduce runoff of the nutrients into adjacent land.
How does intercropping improve soil fertility?
We hypothesize that intercropping can maintain soil fertility by increasing below-ground biomass inputs derived from above-ground biomass overyielding as well as below-ground biodiversity resulting from above-ground crop diversity.
What is the purpose of intercropping with legumes?
Thus, intercropping a cereal and a legume at low N input reduces nitrogen stress of the cereal and strengthens the biological capture of atmospheric nitrogen by the legume (Hauggaard-Nielsen and Jensen 2001).
What is cereal-legume intercropping?
It’s a cropping system which involves the growth of two or more plants in the same field during the same season to allow interactions between component crops. It assessed the advantages obtained from intercropping, especially in cereal-legume cropping system.
What are the advantages of growing legumes?
Soil quality benefits of legumes include: increasing soil organic matter, improving soil porosity, recycling nutrients, improving soil structure, decreasing soil pH, diversifying the microscopic life in the soil, and breaking disease build-up and weed problems of grass-type crops.
Does intercropping preserve nutrients?
Intercropping makes the most of the available soil. When anything is grown on a farmland, the crop tends to absorb as much water and nutrients as it needs. There could be more nutrients in the soil under the crops and around. Intercropping also averts soil runoff and can prevent the growth of weeds.
What kind of crops are grown in intercropping?
An example of a perennial-annual intercropping match is garlic and tomatoes. In tropical regions, coffee and banana make a popular perennial combination. Regarding the time of seeding, plants are sown either at the same time or when other species are already flowering or ready for harvesting.
Why are legumes intercropped with cereal crops and sugar crops?
We found that intercropping legume with cereal species in the same row can increase efficiency of photosynthetic process in legumes and reduce mineral N fertilizer inputs in cereals. Hence, intercropping culture can maintain agro-ecosystem without air, soil and water pollution.
Why legumes are intercropped with cereals and sugar crops?
How do legumes improve soil quality?
How effective is intercropping?
Using a multiple cropping system, you can assure an ecological balance and better use of resources. Crops yield increase with intercropping due to higher growth rate, reduction of weeds, pests and diseases and more effective use of resources. Pest and disease damage in intercropping is less than pure cropping.
What are the benefits of intercropping with cereals and legumes?
Cereal+legume intercropping provides a greater scope for minimizing the adverse impact of moisture and nutrient stress in addition to improving system productivity and soil health. Researchers reported significant enhancement of system productivity in intercropping besides supplying diversified food.
How can legumes check the declining productivity of cereal-based cropping system?
By improving chemical, biological, and physical environment in the soil, legumes can check the declining productivity of cereal-based cropping system.
What is intercropping in agriculture?
This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn’t claimed this research yet. Intercropping is the system of simultaneously growing two or more crops on the same land area with a definite row arrangement. However, it is very much important to ensure that component crops do not compete with each other for space, moisture, nutrients, and solar radiation.
Do alfalfa and corn-rye intercropping systems increase forage production performance?
The intercropping system of alfalfa and corn-rye provided higher forage production performance with net increases of 9.52\% and 34.81\% in DM yield, 42.13\% and 16.74\% in crude protein (CP) yield, 25.94\% and 69.99\% in degradable DM yield, and 16.96\% and 5.50\% in degradable CP yield than rotation and alfalfa sole cropping systems, respectively.