Associational resistance through intercropping reduces yield losses to soil-borne pests and diseases.

ABSTRACT: Associational resistance to herbivore and pathogen attack is a well documented ecological phenomenon and, if applied to agriculture, may reduce impact of pests and diseases on crop yields without recourse to pesticides. The value of associational resistance through intercropping, planting multiple crops alongside each other, as a sustainable control method remains unclear, due to variable outcomes reported in the published literature. We performed a meta-analysis to provide a quantitative assessment of benefits of intercropping for target plant resistance to plant-parasitic nematodes and soil-borne diseases. We found that intercropping reduced damage to focal crops from nematodes by 40% and disease incidence by 55%. Intercropping efficacy varied with biological variables, such as field fer

SUBMITTER: Chadfield VGA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9545407 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature