LIGHT INTERCEPTION AND USE EFFICIENCY DIFFER WITH MAIZE PLANT DENSITY IN MAIZE-PEANUT INTERCROPPING

Highlights

• Intercropping intercepted more light than sole peanut but less than sole maize.

• Maize light use efficiency (LUE) increased with plant density in the intercropping.

• Intercropping did not affect LUE of maize but increased peanut LUE.

Abstract

Intercropping increases crop yields by optimizing light interception and/or use efficiency. Although intercropping combinations and metrics have been reported, the effects of plant density on light use are not well documented. Here, we examined the light interception and use efficiency in maize-peanut intercropping with different maize plant densities in two row configurations in semiarid dryland agriculture over a two-year period. The field experiment comprised four cropping systems, i.e. monocropped maize, monocropped peanut, maize-peanut intercropping with two rows of maize and four rows of peanut, intercropping with four rows of maize and four rows of peanut, and three maize plant densities (3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 plants m⁻¹ row) in both monocropped and intercropping maize. The mean total light interception in intercropping across years and densities was 779 MJ·m⁻², 5.5% higher than in monocropped peanut (737 MJ·m⁻²) and 7.6% lower than in monocropped maize (843 MJ·m⁻²). Increasing maize density increased light interception in monocropped maize but did not affect the total light interception in the intercrops. Across years the LUE of maize was 2.9 g·MJ⁻¹ and was not affected by cropping system but increased with maize plant density. The LUE of peanut was enhanced in intercropping, especially in a wetter year. The yield advantage of maize-peanut intercropping resulted mainly from the LUE of peanut. These results will help to optimize agronomic management and system design and provide evidence for system level light use efficiency in intercropping.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

dryland agriculture / light interception / light use efficiency / maize-peanut intercropping / semiarid

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFD0300202), the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Team Construction and Talent Development Project (JZ0145B752017), and the International Cooperation and Exchange of the National Science Foundation of China (31461143025). The work was partly funded by the European Union through the Horizon 2020 Program for Research and Innovation under grant agreement No. 727217 (ReMIX: redesigning European cropping systems based on species MIXtures).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Qi Wang, Zhanxiang Sun, Wei Bai, Dongsheng Zhang, Yue Zhang, Ruonan Wang, Wopke van der Werf, Jochem B. Evers, Tjeerd-Jan Stomph, Jianping Guo, and Lizhen Zhang declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2021. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)