Exploring options for managing strategies for pea–barley intercropping using a modeling approach

Abstract

A modeling study was carried out into pea-barley intercropping in northern Europe. The two objectives were (a) to compare pea-barley intercropping to sole cropping in terms of grain and nitrogen yield amounts and stability, and (b) to explore options for managing pea-barley intercropping systems in order to maximize the biomass produced and the grain and nitrogen yields according to the available resources, such as light, water and nitrogen. The study consisted of simulations taking into account soil and weather variability among three sites located in northern European countries (Denmark, United Kingdom and France), and using 10 years of weather records. A preliminary stage evaluated the STICS intercrop model's ability to predict grain and nitrogen yields of the two species, using a 2-year dataset from trials conducted at the three sites. The work was carried out in two phases, (a) the model was run to investigate the potentialities of intercrops as compared to sole crops, and (b) the model was run to explore options for managing pea-barley intercropping, asking the following three questions: i) in order to increase light capture, would it be worth delaying the sowing dates of one species? ii) how to manage sowing density and seed proportion of each species in the intercrop to improve total grain yield and N use efficiency? iii) how to optimize the use of nitrogen resources by choosing the most suitable preceding crop and/or the most appropriate soil? It was found that (1) intercropping made better use of environmental resources as regards yield amount and stability than sole cropping, with a noticeable site effect, (2) pea growth in intercrops was strongly linked to soil moisture, and barley yield was determined by nitrogen uptake and light interception due to its height relative to pea, (3) sowing barley before pea led to a relative grain yield reduction averaged over all three sites, but sowing strategy must be adapted to the location, being dependent on temperature and thus latitude, (4) density and species proportions had a small effect on total grain yield, underlining the interspecific offset in the use of environmental growth resources which led to similar total grain yields whatever the pea-barley design, and (5) long-term strategies including mineralization management through organic residue supply and rotation management were very valuable, always favoring intercrop total grain yield and N accumulation.

Ecological principles underlying the increase of productivity achieved by cereal-grain legume intercrops in organic farming. A review

“…However, it is difficult to propose fundamentally based and generic crop technical strategies because of the multitude of possible production objectives and hence of combinations of species, varieties, densities, structure and organic manure strategies. This shows the limitations of experiments and the value of modelling multi-species cropping systems (Brisson et al 2004;Corre-Hellou et al 2009;Launay et al 2009). In fact, for a given production objective, modelling would allow the following: (i) the performance and behaviour of intercrops to be evaluated under a wide range of conditions, (ii) to help with the determination of varietal characteristics suited to intercropping (Barillot et al 2012(Barillot et al , 2014a(Barillot et al , 2014b, (iii) to optimize the crop technical protocols according to multiple criteria and (iv) to devise a decision-aid model.…”

Intercropped red beet and radish with green bean affected microbial communities and nodulation by indigenous rhizobia

“…Many trials were conducted in order to investigate influence of different species in intercrops, especially cereals and legumes, such as maize and beans (Fischler et al 1999), maize and peanut (Xiong et al 2013), wheat and chickpea (Banik et al 2006, Betencourt et al 2012, barley and pea (Launay et al 2009). …”

Combined use of FORMOSAT-2 images with a crop model for biomass and water monitoring of permanent grassland in Mediterranean region

“…Two approaches are proposed to compute evapotranspiration: a crop coefficient approach and a resistive approach according to the Shuttleworth and Wallace's model (Brisson et al, 1998). Catalogues of various parameters are defined for several crops, and agricultural practices (Launay et al, 2009). Ruget et al (2006) conducted a sensitivity analysis to choose the main parameters of the model.…”