Yield advantage and carbon footprint of oat/sunflower relay strip intercropping depending on nitrogen fertilization

authored by

Xin Qian, Jie Zhou, Bolun Luo, Hongcui Dai, Yuegao Hu, Changzhong Ren, Leanne Peixoto, Laichun Guo, Chunlong Wang, Kazem Zamanian, Baoping Zhao, Huadong Zang, Zhaohai Zeng

Abstract

Purpose: Increasing crop yield to ensure global food security while decreasing carbon footprint (CF) is a challenge for sustainable agriculture. Although intercropping is suggested as a potential pathway in this regard, the balance between yield advantage and CF is unclear, especially under different nitrogen (N) application rates. Methods: A two-year field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of oat/sunflower intercropping and N application rates (0, 50, 100, and 150 kg ha⁻¹) on yield advantages, N uptake, and CF. Results: The overall land equivalent ratio of oat/sunflower intercropping decreased from 1.33 to 1.07 with increasing N fertilization, which implies the potential N reduction to maintain crop yield. Without fertilization, the yield advantage of intercropping was 28–32% and 18–47% higher for oat and sunflower, respectively compared with corresponding monocultures. However, this yield advantage decreased with increasing fertilization, especially for oat. The border rows contributed more than one-third of the yield for intercropped oat without N fertilization, but their contribution decreased with increasing N fertilization. However, the contribution of border rows to intercropped sunflower yield was independent of N fertilization and remained around 69–75%. Overall, oat/sunflower relay strip intercropping maximizes the productivity by border row effects due to reduced N fertilization demand. Furthermore, intercropping decreased the CF relative to monoculture, especially without N fertilization. Conclusion: Intercropping can act as a win–win strategy for sustainable agriculture in Northwest China with higher productivity and lower carbon footprint.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Soil Science

External Organisation(s)

Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences
China Agricultural University
Baicheng Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Aarhus University
Inner Mongolia Agricultural University
National Engineering Laboratory for Wheat and Maize

Type

Article

Journal

Plant and soil

Volume

481

Pages

581-594

No. of pages

14

ISSN

0032-079X

Publication date

12.2022

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Soil Science, Plant Science

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 2 - Zero Hunger

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05661-5 (Access: Closed)