Sustainable horticultural crop production through intercropping: the case of fruits and vegetable crops: a review.

Sustainable agriculture seeks to at least use nature as the model for designing agricultural systems. Since nature integrates her plants and animals into diverse landscape, a major tenet of sustainable agriculture is efficiency and lack of waste products in nature. When domestication of crops replaced hunting and gathering of food, landscape changed accordingly. By producing a limited selection of crop plants and animals, human kind has substantially reduced the level of biological diversity over much of the earth. There is more cooperation in nature than competition. Cooperation is exemplified by mutually beneficial relationships that occur between species within communities. If left undistributed and unplanted an abandoned crop field will first be colonized by just a few species of organisms but after several years a complex community made up of many wild species develops. Stability is reached by a community when it has reached a high level of diversity. Diverse communities have fewer fluctuations in numbers of a given species and are stable. The practices which promote diversity and stability on the farm are enterprise diversification, crop rotation, use of wind breaks, provision of more habitats for microorganisms, intercropping and integration of crop farming with livestock production. Intercropping is the cultivation of two or more crops at the same time in the same field. Its advantages are risk minimization, increased income and food security, reduction of soil erosion and pest and disease control. This paper discusses the practice of intercropping in horticultural crop production to promote sustainability. Many crop systems are discussed.

[1]  R. Mead,et al.  The Concept of a ‘Land Equivalent Ratio’ and Advantages in Yields from Intercropping , 1980, Experimental Agriculture.

[2]  C. Francis,et al.  Insect, weed and plant disease management in multiple cropping systems. , 1986 .

[3]  B. Trenbath.  Plant Interactions in Mixed Crop Communities , 1976 .

[4]  K. Reddy,et al.  Pearl millet and cowpea yields in sole and intercrop systems, and their after-effects on soil and crop productivity , 1992 .

[5]  E. Torquebiau,et al.  Multistrata Agroforestry with Beans, Bananas and Grevillea robusta in the Highlands of Burundi , 1999, Experimental Agriculture.

[6]  M. Liebman,et al.  Crop Rotation and Intercropping Strategies for Weed Management. , 1993, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[7]  R. W. Willey.  Intercropping Its Importance And Research Needs Part 1. Competition And Yield Advantages Vol-32 , 1979 .

[8]  M. S. Reddy,et al.  Growth and resource use studies in an intercrop of pearl millet/groundnut , 1981 .

[9]  G. Bahl,et al.  Efficiency of P utilization by pigeonpea and wheat grown in a rotation , 1998, Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems.

[10]  P. Woomer,et al.  Integrated soil fertility management in Africa : principles, practices and developmental process , 2009 .

[11]  N. Jodha.  Intercropping in traditional farming systems. , 1980 .

[12]  A. Agboola,et al.  Fixation and Excretion of Nitrogen by Tropical Legumes1 , 1972 .

[13]  P. Sánchez,et al.  Replenishing Soil Fertility in Africa, Edited , 2022 .

[14]  R. W. Willey,et al.  Studies on mixtures of maize and beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) with particular reference to plant population , 1972, The Journal of Agricultural Science.

[15]  M. Bekunda.  Farmers' responses to soil fertility decline in banana-based cropping systems of Uganda , 1999 .

[16]  B. Krantz.  Intercropping on an operational scale in an improved farming system , 1981 .

[17]  C. Borgemeister,et al.  Abundance, dispersion and parasitism of the stem borer Busseola fusca (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in maize in the humid forest zone of southern Cameroon. , 2005, Bulletin of entomological research.

[18]  J. Tungani,et al.  Innovative maize-legume intercropping results in above-and below-ground competitive advantages for understorey legumes , 2009 .

[19]  C. Francis,et al.  Transgressive yielding in bean: Maize intercrops; interference in time and space , 1985 .

[20]  S. Singh,et al.  Management practices for intercropping systems. , 1981 .

[21]  H. Herren,et al.  Integrated pest management: the push–pull approach for controlling insect pests and weeds of cereals, and its potential for other agricultural systems including animal husbandry , 2008, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[22]  M. Natarajan,et al.  Competitive Effects of a Short Duration, Bush Type Cowpea When Intercropped With Cotton in Zimbabwe , 1992, Experimental Agriculture.

[23]  B. S. Prabhakar,et al.  Nutritional Potential of Vegetable Inter-Cropping Systems , 1985 .

[24]  M. Bekunda,et al.  Organic resource management in banana-based cropping systems of the Lake Victoria Basin, Uganda , 1996 .

[25]  L. Craker,et al.  Bean growth and light interception in a bean-maize intercrop , 1981 .

[26]  P. Speijer.  East African highland banana production as influenced by nematodes and crop management in Uganda , 1999 .

[27]  C. Hiebsch.  Principles of intercropping : effects of nitrogen fertilization, plant population, and crop duration on eqivalency ratios in intercrop versus monoculture comparisons , 1980 .

[28]  R. Ortiz,et al.  Geographic shifts in highland banana production in Uganda. , 2000 .

[29]  P. Mafongoya,et al.  Effect of rotational fallows on abundance of soil insects and weeds in maize crops in eastern Zambia , 2003 .

[30]  K. Giller,et al.  Interactions between residues of maize and pigeonpea and mineral N fertilizers during decomposition and N mineralization , 2000 .