Farmer-participatory design and assessment of multispecies intercrops of cool-season grain crops

Abstract

Multispecies mixtures of crops are challenging to design and manage due to the complex relationships between species in the mixtures. Both practical and biological obstacles arise when agriculture moves from monoculture to polyculture crops. However, crop mixtures could provide a tool to stabilize yield fluctuations, increase diversity and resilience, and support ecological intensification in organic farming. The general objective was to design and evaluate together with organic farmers, grain and forage mixtures for Northern and Southern Europe on the basis of crop use, management factors, phenology, plant type and expected compatibility, using earlier data and knowledge, scientific literature and farmers’ experience. All designed mixtures were tested experimentally under organic farming to verify the agronomic value and farmers’ acceptability of the crop mixtures. The advantages and challenges related to the crop mixtures in terms of the total crop yield, management practices and a range of other aspects of their agricultural performance were determined. This report summarizes the most promising multispecies grain legume-based mixed crops developed in the project and their agronomic performance in the field experiments in Northern and Southern Europe. The advantages of crop mixtures over pure stands are discussed along with practical issues related to mixed crops investigated and agroecological measures