Intercropping spring-sown brassicas with cereals for green manure

Abstract

Brassica and cereal crops have been cultivated in Southeast Europe since Neolithic, as one of the major segments of the so-called “agricultural revolution”, having commenced in the Near East (Zohary et al. 2012). The Balkan Peninsula was one of its main routes leading to the continent's centre and has remained oriented towards growing these crops until today. In many regions, spring-sown cultivars of both brassicas, such as rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) and white mustard (Sinapis alba L.), and cereals, like oat (Avena sativa L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and common wheat (Triticum aestivum L. subsp. aestivum) are used for forage production, either as sole crops or in mixtures mostly with annual legumes, such as pea (Pisum sativum L.) or common vetch (Vicia sativa L.) (Cupina et al. 2011, Cupina et al. 2014). Intercropping, most often referring to sowing and cultivating two or more domesticated species at the same place and at the same time together, is one of the most ancient attested farming designs (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al. 2011). Mixtures of brassicas and legumes proved to be beneficial to both components, especially for the first one, due to an enhanced supply with nitrogen (Cortés-Mora et al. 2010). The agronomic performance of the intercrops of various spring-sown brassicas and cereals has remained rather scarcely examined, although it could provide diverse agricultural practices in contrasting temperate environments with a number of advantages (Mihailovic et al. 2014). The goal of this study was to assess the possibility of intercropping spring