Abstract

Review for "Facilitation and Biodiversity Ecosystem Function (BEF) relationships in crop production systems and their role in sustainable farming"

Highlights

  • The ‘three sisters’ polyculture, consisting of maize (Zea mays), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and squash (Cucurbita spp.), is an ancient cropping system that originated in Central Mexico and spread throughout the Americas by 1000 AD (Smith, 2001; Mt Pleasant, 2006)

  • Little is known about how polyculture yield advantage varies with nutrient availability, even though polycultures are especially important to small-scale subsistence farmers in Latin America and African countries, who mostly rely on native soil fertility, which severely constrains their productivity (Lynch, 2007)

  • In 2007, the growth reductions of maize and squash caused by nutrient stress were stronger when grown in the polycultures, but this was not the case in 2008

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Summary

Introduction

The ‘three sisters’ polyculture, consisting of maize (Zea mays), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and squash (Cucurbita spp.), is an ancient cropping system that originated in Central Mexico and spread throughout the Americas by 1000 AD (Smith, 2001; Mt Pleasant, 2006). Several mechanisms underlying the yield advantage of two-species polycultures have been identified, such as less yield loss due to reduced insect abundance (Risch, 1980), disease incidence (Zhu et al, 2000)) or weed growth (Gliessman, 1983), and greater efficiency in nutrient acquisition (Hinsinger et al, 2005; Ruijven and Berendse, 2005; Li et al, 2007) or total light capture (Tsubo and Walker, 2002). All of these mechanisms may be functional in the ‘three sisters’ polyculture (Risch, 1980; Gliessman, 1983; Lewandowski, 1987). The density of lateral root branching was significantly greater for all species in the polycultures than in the monocultures. † Conclusions It is concluded that species differences in root foraging strategies increase total soil exploration, with consequent positive effects on the growth and yield of these ancient polycultures

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