Sustainability and resilience are priorities in agriculture. A new analysis of four experiments with a combined 46 years of data shows that intercropping — growing multiple crops together — can increase yields, yield stability and soil fertility.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Potential crop yield gains under intensive soybean/maize intercropping in China
Plant and Soil Open Access 06 December 2023
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Robertson, G. P. & Swinton, S. M. Front. Ecol. Environ. 3, 38–46 (2005).
Egli, L., Mehrabi, Z. & Seppelt, R. Environ. Res. Lett. 16, 055015 (2021).
Lin, B. B. BioScience 61, 183–193 (2011).
Smith, R. G., Gross, K. L. & Robertson, G. P. Ecosystems 11, 355–366 (2008).
Davis, A. S., Hill, J. D., Chase, C. A., Johanns, A. M. & Liebman, M. PLoS ONE 7, e47149 (2012).
Li, X. et al. Nat. Sustain. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00767-7 (2021).
Martin-Guay, M. O., Paquette, A., Dupras, J. & Rivest, D. Sci. Total Environ. 615, 767–772 (2018).
Li, C. et al. Nat. Plants 6, 653–660 (2020).
Raseduzzaman, M. D. & Jensen, E. S. Eur. J. Agron. 91, 25–33 (2017).
Brooker, R. W. et al. New Phytol. 206, 107–117 (2015).
Mortensen, D. A. & Smith, R. G. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 4, 199 (2020).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ryan, M.R. Crops better when grown together. Nat Sustain 4, 926–927 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00768-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00768-6
This article is cited by
-
Soil carbon storage and accessibility drive microbial carbon use efficiency by regulating microbial diversity and key taxa in intercropping ecosystems
Biology and Fertility of Soils (2024)
-
Potential crop yield gains under intensive soybean/maize intercropping in China
Plant and Soil (2023)
-
Maize/soybean strip intercropping enhances crop yield in rain-fed agriculture under the warming climate: a modeling approach
Agronomy for Sustainable Development (2022)