PREFACE
This book provides a discussion on the applications, management and
impact of cropping systems. Chapter One reviews the possibility of using
intercropping, especially strip intercropping, as an effective and economically
efficient crop biofortification. Chapter Two evaluates phosphorus dynamics in
the soil-plant system under different management practices in the semiarid
land of Pampas, Argentina. Chapter Three focuses on long-term winter wheat
cropping and it’s influence on soil quality and yield stability. Chapter Four
examines gender-based socio-economic characteristics of cassava farmers;
gender-based climate change awareness of cassava farmers; gender-based
cassava farmers’ constraints to climate change adaptation and examines the
factors influencing gender-based cassava farmers’ choice of adaptation
strategies in the study area. Chapter Five studies the increased soil fertility in a
long-term rice-oilseed rape cropping system and its potential roles in reducing
nitrogen inputs and in the environment.
Chapter 1 – Intercropping consists of growing two or more plants in the
same space at the same time. It has been used for a long time in many parts of
the world, to feed and in food production. Intercropping not only promotes the
achieving of higher yields, it can also influence the availability and utilization
of nutrients by plants as compared to single species cultivation. Depending on
the spatial arrangement and species in intercropping, different mechanisms
may influence the increased nutrient uptake. One of them is different dates of
sowing and harvesting plants in intercropping, and species differences in the
periods of the most intense uptake of elements, which can change
competitiveness in the accumulation of nutrients. Another is the introduction
to intercropping of legume crops, which have deep, well-developed root
systems and can extract nutrients such as P, K, Mg and Ca from deeper layers