Abstract
Diversifying cropping systems by increasing the number of cash and cover crops in crop rotation plays an important role in improving resource use efficiency and in promoting synergy between ecosystem processes. The objective of this study was to understand how the combination of crop diversification practices influences the performance of arable crop sequences in terms of crop grain yield, crop and weed biomass, and nitrogen acquisition in a temperate climate. Two field experiments were carried out. The first was a 3-year crop sequence with cereal or grain legume as the first crops, with and without undersown forage legumes and forage legume-grass crops, followed by a cereal crop. The second experiment was a 2-year crop sequence with cereal or legume as the first crops, a legume cover crop, and a subsequent cereal crop. For the first time, crop diversification practices were combined to identify plant-plant interactions in spatial and temporal scales. The results partly confirm the positive effect of diversifying cereal-based cropping systems by including grain legumes and cover crops in the crop sequence. Legume cover crops had a positive effect on subsequent cereal grain yield in one of the experiments. Using faba beans as the first crop in the crop sequence had both a positive and no effect on crop biomass and N acquisition of the subsequent cereal. In cover crops composed of a forage legume-grass mixture, the grass biomass and N acquisition were consistently increased after the grain legume, compared to the cereal-preceding crop. However, differences in the proportion of legume to grass in mixture did not influence crop yield or N acquisition in the subsequent cereal. In conclusion, these results support that increased crop diversity across spatial and temporal scales can contribute to resource-efficient production and enhance the delivery of services, contributing to more sustainable cropping systems.
Highlights
In European agriculture, cropping systems have been simplified to facilitate crop management of large-scale fields (Landis 2017)
The proportion of nitrogen derived from the atmosphere (%Ndfa) in legumes was calculated based on their deviation from atmospheric 15N abundance (δ15Nleg) (Eq 1), using the mean δ15N value in grass growing together with lucerne and red clover from each block as the reference, δ15Nref
Our results showed a clear positive effect of the presence of oats and cocksfoot on symbiotic N2 fixation in lucerne (Fig. 4), which follows the logic that the cereal and grass competed efficiently for soil N and forced lucerne to rely relatively more on N2 fixation
Summary
In European agriculture, cropping systems have been simplified to facilitate crop management of large-scale fields (Landis 2017). Crop diversification can be defined as the increase in crop diversity through the implementation of practices such as intercropping, cover crops, diversified crop rotations, and integration of perennial crops. The increase in yield may occur by the complementarity effect in the intercropping, allowing for a more efficient use of resources (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al 2012). In the case of implementing cover crops in the crop rotation, they may offer weed suppression through increased competition, reduce N leaching, and promote soil organic carbon sequestration (Abdalla et al 2019; Poeplau and Don 2015; Valkama et al 2015). Diversifying crop rotations with legumes will both complement and facilitate the capture and cycling of nutrients by the legume input of biologically fixed nitrogen and the carryover effect of nutrients to the following crop (Peoples et al 2009). The variation in the use of resources due to the inclusion of different species or groups of species in the crop sequence generates challenges in following the mechanisms involved in resource acquisition and requires a better understanding of the interactions between species and the consequences of niche differentiation in the cropping system
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