Effects of biochar on soil water and temperature, nutrients, and yield of maize/soybean and maize/peanut intercropping systems

Abstract

Intercropping is an important agricultural planting technique that improves resource utilization efficiency through interactions between different crop species (Chen et al., 2010). The implementation of a reasonable intercropping strategy could improve the efficiency with which plants utilize light, temperature, fertilizer, water and other natural resources, it could also reduce the risk of pests, diseases, and weed competition and increase the yield per unit area (Oswald et al., 2002; Hussain et al., 2020). The annual area in China sown under intercropping conditions is more than 2.8×10 ha, among which the area of legume intercropping exceeds 1×10 ha (Miao et al., 2011). Therefore, continuous improvement in the production of the intercropping planting model is important to ensure food security. Because legumes can obtain nitrogen from the atmosphere through biological nitrogen fixation, the intercropping of Gramineae and Leguminosae species can enhance yields, this has been confirmed by previous studies (Green et al., 2019). When intercropped with grasses, legumes can act as nutrient donors for grass crops, thereby increasing the nitrogen utilization rate (Pirhofer et al., 2012). In addition, the intercropping of Gramineae species and legumes allows for the optimization of the temporal and spatial growth patterns of the above ground and underground parts, which has the potential not only to promote the efficient use of resources such as light and © 2021 Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences