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Long-term increased grain yield and soil fertility from intercropping

Nature Sustainability volume 4, pages 943–950 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Population and income growth are increasing global food demand at a time when a third of the world’s agricultural soils are degraded and climate variability threatens the sustainability of food production. Intercropping, the practice of growing two or more spatially intermingled crops, often increases yields, but whether such yield increases, their stability and soil fertility can be sustained over time remains unclear. Using four long-term (10–16 years) experiments on soils of differing fertility, we found that grain yields in intercropped systems were on average 22% greater than in matched monocultures and had greater year-to-year stability. Moreover, relative to monocultures, yield benefits of intercropping increased through time, suggesting that intercropping may increase soil fertility via observed increases in soil organic matter, total nitrogen and macro-aggregates when comparing intercropped with monoculture soils. Our results suggest that wider adoption of intercropping could increase both crop production and its long-term sustainability.

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Fig. 1: Average grain yield and its temporal trends comparing monoculture and intercropping systems in equal-fertilization and optimal-fertilization experiments from 2003/2009 to 2018.
Fig. 2: Average temporal stability of yields for intercropping and their respective sole cropping across all crop combinations and fertilization treatments in equal-fertilization and optimal-fertilization experiments from 2003/2009 to 2018.
Fig. 3: Soil large macro-aggregates comparing monoculture and intercropping systems in equal-fertilization and optimal-fertilization experiments.
Fig. 4: Relative changes of soil chemical properties for intercropping compared with corresponding monocultures in equal-fertilization and optimal-fertilization experiments.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available in Supplementary Data 1 and from the corresponding author upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The custom code generated for this study is available in the Supplementary Information and from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all members involved in the maintenance of the long-term field experiments. We also thank H. Xu (Hebei Agricultural University) for advice on yield detrending method and X. Li (CSIRO Agriculture and Food) for assistance on data analysis and visualization. This work was supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31430014), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0300202) and the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2011CB100405). R.M.C. thanks the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Cooperative Agreement OIA-1757351 for partial support.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Xiao-Fei Li

    Present address: State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Institute of Cotton Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Anyang, China

  2. Hai-Yong Xia

    Present address: Crop Research Institute, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinan, China

  3. Pei-Pei Mei

    Present address: College of Life Sciences and Technology, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, China

  4. These authors contributed equally: Xiao-Fei Li, Zhi-Gang Wang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Plant and Soil Interactions, Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Organic Farming, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

    Xiao-Fei Li, Zhi-Gang Wang, Jin-Pu Wu, Xin-Ru Liu, Xiu-Li Tian, Yu Wang, Jian-Peng Li, Yan Wang, Hai-Yong Xia, Pei-Pei Mei, Xiao-Feng Wang, Rui-Peng Yu, Wei-Ping Zhang & Long Li

  2. Institute of Soils, Fertilizers and Water-Saving Agriculture, Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China

    Xing-Guo Bao, Jian-Hao Sun, Si-Cun Yang, Cheng-Bao Wang, Jian-Hua Zhao & Zong-Xian Che

  3. Institute of Crop Sciences, Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Yinchuan, China

    Ping Wang & Lin-Guo Gui

  4. Division of Biological Sciences and Institute on Ecosystems, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

    Ragan M. Callaway

  5. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, USA

    David Tilman

  6. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    David Tilman

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Contributions

L.L., X.-F.L., Z.-G.W., J.-H.S., X.-G.B. and S.-C.Y. designed the research; X.-F.L., Z.-G.W., X.-G.B., J.-H.S., S.-C.Y., P.W, C.-B.W., J.-P.W., X.-R.L., X.-L.T, Yu Wang, J.-P.L., Yan Wang, H.-Y.X., P.-P.M., X.-F.W., J.-H.Z., R.-P.Y., W.-P.Z., Z.-X.C., L.-G.G. and L.L. performed research; X.-F.L., Z.-G.W., R.-P.Y. and L.L. analysed the data; and X.-F.L., Z.-G.W., R.M.C., D.T. and L.L. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Long Li.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks Wen-Feng Cong, Matthew Ryan and Christian Schöb for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3 and Tables 1–4.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Data 1

Statistical source data for Supplementary Figs. 2 and 3.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Statistical source data for Fig. 1.

Source Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data for Fig. 2.

Source Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data for Fig. 3.

Source Data Fig. 4

Statistical source data for Fig. 4.

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Li, XF., Wang, ZG., Bao, XG. et al. Long-term increased grain yield and soil fertility from intercropping. Nat Sustain 4, 943–950 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00767-7

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