Peanut and cotton intercropping increases productivity and economic returns through regulating plant nutrient accumulation and soil microbial communities.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Intercropping (IC) has been widely adopted by farmers for enhancing crop productivity and economic returns; however, the underpinning mechanisms from the perspective of below-ground interspecific interactions are only partly understood especially when intercropping practices under saline soil conditions. By using permeable (100 μm) and impermeable (solid) root barriers in a multi-site field experiment, we aimed to study the impact of root-root interactions on nutrient accumulation, soil microbial communities, crop yield, and economic returns in a peanut/cotton IC system under non-saline, secondary-saline, and coastal saline soil conditions of China.

Results

The results indicate that IC decreased the peanut pods yield by 14.00, 10.01, and 16.52% while increased the

SUBMITTER: Xie W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8925217 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature