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Context: Crop diversification has been proposed as a promising strategy for transitioning towards sustainable agricultural systems by leveraging biological processes and controls present in naturally biodiverse ecosystems. Strip cropping, a form of intercropping where two or more crops are grown adjacent to one another in long and narrow multi-row strips, has been shown to deliver a greater range of ecosystem services compared to sole crop references due to increased interspecific crop interactions, spatio-temporal niche differentiation, and higher in-field habitat diversity. The possibility to adjust the strip width to the working width of farmers' existing machines gives strip cropping of cash crops an important implementation advantage over other intercropping practices. Systematic exploration and evaluation of spatial plans for strip cropping systems, however, is constrained by the lack of spatially-explicit design approaches.Objective: Here we present a framework to support systematic exploration of spatio-temporal strip cropping configurations for a given farm context and set of objectives.Methods: The framework comprises six steps: 1) Diagnosis of the current farm situation; 2) Specification of strip cropping system attributes; 3) Temporal strip cropping planning; 4) Spatio-temporal strip cropping planning; 5) Spatio-temporal strip cropping configuration assessment; 6) Strip cropping configuration selection and visualization. We combine two software applications: ROTAT to generate crop rotations and the novel RotaStrip to systematically explore spatio-temporal configurations based on the rotations generated by ROTAT. We illustrate the framework with a case study from the Netherlands using gross margin, habitat score, and spatial crop compatibility score as indicators.Results and conclusions: 150 crop rotations were generated. When 6 additional crops were included this was increased to 51,371, and the maximum values of the three indicator scores were also impr

Intercropping is both a well-established and yet novel agricultural practice, depending on one’s perspective. Such perspectives are principally governed by geographic location and whether monocultural practices predominate. Given the negative environmental effects of monoculture agriculture (loss of biodiversity, reliance on non-renewable inputs, soil degradation, etc.), there has been a renewed interest in cropping systems that can reduce the impact of modern agriculture while maintaining (or even increasing) yields. Intercropping is one of the most promising practices in this regard, yet faces a multitude of challenges if it is to compete with and ultimately replace the prevailing monocultural norm. These challenges include the necessity for more complex agricultural designs in space and time, bespoke machinery, and adapted crop cultivars. Plant breeding for monocultures has focused on maximizing yield in single-species stands, leading to highly productive yet specialized genotypes. However, indications suggest that these genotypes are not the best adapted to intercropping systems. Re-designing breeding programs to accommodate inter-specific interactions and compatibilities, with potentially multiple different intercropping partners, is certainly challenging, but recent technological advances offer novel solutions. We identify a number of such technology-driven directions, either ideotype-driven (i.e., “trait-based” breeding) or quantitative genetics-driven (i.e., “product-based” breeding). For ideotype breeding, plant growth modeling can help predict plant traits that affect both inter- and intraspecific interactions and their influence on crop performance. Quantitative breeding approaches, on the other hand, estimate breeding values of component crops without necessarily understanding the underlying mechanisms. We argue that a combined approach, for example, integrating plant growth modeling with genomic-assisted selection and indirect genetic effects, may offer

In this article we explore the concept and implications of three-dimensional (spatial, temporal, and genetic) in-field crop diversification to inform systems redesign towards ecological intensification. We first present a conceptual framework for classifying diversity in arable contexts. We then apply the framework to analyse two long-term systems experiments in The Netherlands where spatial and genetic diversity measures were implemented via strip and mixed intercropping with the aim to increase ecosystem service delivery: incidence and spreading rate of late blight (Phytophthora infestans) in potato (Solanum tubersosum L.), and biocontrol control potential in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). In the case of late blight, potatoes planted in strips had significantly lower disease incidence than the monoculture reference across all years, and adding cultivar mixing within the strip was more powerful in mitigating late blight than spatial diversification alone. In the case of biocontrol in wheat, strips supported significantly larger (for all but one taxonomic group) and significantly more diverse epigeic natural enemy populations than the sole culture reference in all years. However, the addition of species mixing within strips did not further increase biocontrol indices compared to sole-wheat strips. These results imply that compromises between management complexity and ecosystem service enhancement are achievable through strip cropping, an operable practice with current machinery, and one that does not require a thorough reconfiguration of the production system. The three-dimensional diversity framework proved useful for unpacking experimental outcomes in terms of diversity-mediated mechanisms, however it requires further development before it can be used to facilitate multi-objective optimization.

A single focus on yield in agroecosystems comes at the expense of other ecosystem services, for instance, biocontrol of pests. In this study, we investigated the potential of intercropping to improve the delivery of ecosystem services by cropping systems. Intercropping was expected to deliver a higher yield through facilitation and complementarity while simultaneously suppressing pests via pest habitat dilution and habitat provision for natural enemies. Utilizing a network of experiments on crop diversification with different spatial arrangements and different levels of genetic crop diversity across the Netherlands in 2018, we analyzed the effect of seven intercropping designs on crop injury by pests, yield and quality in cabbage. Individual cabbage leaf injury by herbivorous pests was assessed using a newly developed diagrammatic scale. Provisioning services were measured as individual cabbage fresh weight and yield per unit area. We found a significant negative relationship between crop diversity and herbivore feeding injury per cabbage: intercropping designs with more species, accessions and/or cultivars exhibited lower feeding injury. The presence of flower strips significantly reduced overall injury in the adjacent cabbage strip, despite higher injury found in the rows closer to the flower strip. There was no clear relationship between crop diversity and fresh marketable weight per cabbage, however five out of seven intercropping designs were able to maintain total yield per area when compared with the sole crop reference. Our results show that crop diversification can simultaneously support the production ecosystem service by maintaining fresh marketable weight per cabbage plant and productivity per unit area, as well as the regulating ecosystem service of pest control. These results provide a basis for redesigning large-scale arable fields into diversified productive systems, and thereby facilitate the transition towards more sustainable farming systems. A be