Intercropping means better harvests! 🥬 🌱
Planting kohlrabi and lettuce together maximizes space. Fast-growing lettuce provides quick ground cover, suppressing weeds, while slower kohlrabi matures. This diversity boosts soil health and reduces pest pressure. #Intercropping #Sustainable #Gardening
#RegenerativeAgriculture Goes Mainstream
by Jan Lee Jul 10th 2025
"The world’s hottest year on record may also mark the beginning of the end for carbon-intensive, conventional farming. Several factors have converged to bring regenerative practices into the mainstream, while a new study demonstrates that farmers can produce just as much food while improving land productivity by transitioning away from conventional practices.
"#RegenerativeFarming first hit headlines as part of '#LivingSystemsThinking' in the 1960s, later gaining interest among health-conscious foodies when the concept was popularized by food author #MichaelPollan. Today, techniques such as #CoverCropping and integrated pest management are being embraced not only by #environmental activists but also by multinational food companies. The difference is that now, this approach is celebrated for its practical effectiveness in maintaining a consistent food supply in an era of #ClimateChange-driven supply shocks."
Read more:
https://earth.org/regenerative-agriculture-trends-and-impacts/
#FoodForAll #SolarPunkSunday
#Agroecology #RegenerativeFarming
#Intercropping #Polyculture #Resiliency #FoodSystems #ClimateChangeFarming
#RegenerativeAgriculture has its roots in #Indigenous farming
Strategic Intelligence
Fri, October 10, 2025
Excerpt: "While regenerative agriculture is growing in business settings as a method of reducing agricultural impact, and as an emissions reduction method, indigenous farmers have been responding to environmental stimuli and promoting non-intensive farming methods for millennia. Indigenous groups and farmers are the best guardians of the world’s #ecosystems."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/regenerative-agriculture-roots-indigenous-farming-142900539.html
#SolarPunkSunday #Agroecology #RegenerativeFarming #Agroforestry #Intercropping #Polyculture
Paper of the week - week 42:
Bančič et al. 2021
Modeling Illustrates That Genomic Selection Provides New Opportunities for Intercrop Breeding
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2021.605172/full
#benediktspapersoftheweek #CropDiversification #intercropping #PlantBreeding
Paper of the week - week 36:
Marin et al. 2025:
Contrasting Performances of Modern and Landrace Cultivars in Wheat Mixtures and Wheat-Legume Intercrops in Organic and Low Input Conditions
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10681-024-03456-6
#benediktspapersoftheweek #wheat #landrace #intercropping #organic #research #agronomy
The context of global ecological crisis has led to the rediscovery and reuse of landrace crop cultivars. Many recent studies testify the high-quality value of landraces, as well as their agronomic interest in terms of adaptability to pedoclimatic environments. The aim of this study was to highlight the differences between modern varieties and landraces for their mixing and intercropping capabilities. An on-farm experiment, in low input conditions, took place in five different sites in Western France (3 repetitions per site) during three seasons (from seedling 2014 to harvest 2017). Three landraces and three modern varieties were compared in three mixing modalities: monoculture, cultivar mixture and legume intercropping. This on-farm experiment with no chemical input has offered new insights on the differences between modern varieties and landraces: (1) Landraces yielded around 2.8 t ha−1 while modern varieties yielded around 3.0 t ha−1, a difference that was not significant. (2) Landraces’ yields were more stable over sites. (3) Wheat straw dry matter yields were 1.5 t ha−1 higher for landraces than for the modern ones. (4) The grain nitrogen content for landraces was 13.5% while it is 12.3% for modern varieties. (5) Landraces were healthier than modern varieties; (6) Arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi wheat root colonisation was 5% higher in landraces (35.2%) than modern varieties (29.4%) in these conditions unfavourable to mycorrhiza due to ploughing. (7) Wheat lodging was 38.5% for landraces while it was around 1% for modern varieties. Intercropping wheat with legumes decreased wheat grain yield by around 25%, but increased wheat grain nitrogen content from 12.7 to 13.8%, independently between landraces and modern varieties. This study provides novel evidence of the interests of diversifying crops, either through intra-varietal genetic diversity (the use of landraces) and inter-specific diversity (intercropping of wheat and legumes), for both wheat performance and stability.
📗 'Effects of the #Rhizosphere microbial community in interspecific #Intercropping of rice on the resistance against rice blast' - an article from the Journal of #SouthernAgriculture on #ScienceOpen:
🔗 https://www.scienceopen.com/document?vid=1bc5d884-fdd9-4e8c-866f-502dcdd87731
<p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" dir="auto" id="d5884627e151"> <b>[Objective]</b> The objective of this study was to reveal the relationship between rhizosphere soil bacterial community and rice blast resistance under rice interspecies mixed intercropping. This study provided theoretical basis for clarifying the internal mechanism of rice blast control under rice diverse mixed intercropping. </p><p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" dir="auto" id="d5884627e156"> <b>[Method]</b> A traditional rice blast susceptible variety HKN and four modern rice blast resistant varieties SY63, LY838, LY1259 and YG101 were used to conduct mixed intercropping and monoculture. When the rice grew to the yellow maturity stage, the occurrence of rice neck blast was investigated by the five-point sampling method. The diversity and composition changes of soil bacterial communities in the rhizosphere of rice diverse mixed intercropping were analyzed by 16S rDNA sequencing. </p><p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" dir="auto" id="d5884627e161"> <b>[Results]</b> Mixed intercropping treatment could effectively reduce the occurrence of rice blast, and the control effect of HKN (susceptible variety) under different combinations reached 42.14%-73.27%. The results of rice rhizosphere bacterial community diversity showed that mixed intercropping had slight effects on the Alpha diversity of rice rhizosphere bacterial community. The results of principal coordinate analysis showed that except that the rhizosphere bacterial community structure in the HKN‖YG101 combination had no significant change in the rhizosphere bacterial community structure before and after intercroppting ( <i>P</i>>0.05), and the rhizosphere bacterial community structure of the other main varieties and intercropped varieties showed significant changes before and after intercropping ( <i>P<</i>0.05, the same below). The dominant bacterial phyla were Actinobacteriota, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Acidobacteriota. There were 7 genus with high relative abundance in the rhizosphere and significant changes after HKN intercropping, among which relative abundance of <i>Bradyrhizobium</i> was significantly and positively correlated with the incidence and disease index of rice blast, the relative abundance of <i>Marmoricola</i> was significantly and negatively correlated with the incidence and disease index of rice blast. </p><p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" dir="auto" id="d5884627e178"> <b>[Conclusion]</b> Diverse mixed intercropping can greatly change the rice rhizosphere bacterial community structure and reduce the occurrence of rice blast by enriching <i>Marmoricola</i> and increasing the resistance of susceptible varieties to rice blast. </p><p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" class="first" dir="auto" id="d5884627e187"> <b>摘要：【目的】</b> 揭示水稻种内混合间栽下根际土壤细菌群落与稻瘟病抗性的关系, 为明确水稻多样性混合间栽控 制稻瘟病的内在机理提供理论基础。 <b>【方法】</b>以1个感稻瘟病传统品种黄壳糯 (HKN) 分别与4个云南主栽抗稻瘟病水 稻品种汕优63 (SY63) 、Ⅱ优838 (LY838) 、两优1259 (LY1259) 、云光101 (YG101) 进行混合间栽及净栽。水稻长至黄 熟期, 采用五点取样法调查穗颈瘟发生情况；利用16S rDNA测序分析水稻多样性混合间栽根际土壤细菌群落多样性 及组成变化。 <b>【结果】</b>混合间栽后能有效减轻稻瘟病发生程度, 不同组合下对感病品种黄壳糯的防治效果达42.14%~ 73.27%。水稻根际细菌群落多样性分析结果显示, 混合间栽对水稻根际细菌群落Alpha多样性影响较小；主坐标分 析结果显示, 除HKN‖YG101组合中的黄壳糯在间栽前后根际细菌群落结构无显著改变 ( <i>P</i>>0.05) 外, 其他组合主栽 品种和间栽品种在间栽前后根际细菌群落结构均出现显著变化 ( <i>P</i><0.05, 下同) 。各处理优势细菌菌门为放线菌门 (Actinobacteriota) 、绿弯菌门 (Chloroflexi) 、厚壁菌门 (Firmicutes) 、变形菌门 (Proteobacteria) 和酸杆菌门 (Acidobacteriota) 。黄壳糯间栽后根际细菌相对丰度较高且发生显著变化的属有7种, 其中慢生根瘤菌属 ( <i>Bradyrhizobium</i>) 相对 丰度与稻瘟病发病率和病情指数呈显著正相关, 大理石雕菌属 ( <i>Marmoricola</i>) 相对丰度与稻瘟病发病率和病情指数 呈显著负相关。 <b>【结论】</b>多样性混合间栽能明显改变水稻根际细菌群落结构, 并通过富集大理石雕菌属提高感病品种 稻瘟病抗性, 从而减轻稻瘟病发病率。 </p>
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