Abstract
There is an urgent need to develop resilient agroecosystems capable of helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change, particularly drought. In East Africa, diversification of maize-based cropping systems by intercropping with grain and tree legumes may foster productivity and resilience to adverse weather conditions. We tested whether intercropping enhances drought resistance and crop and whole-system yields by imposing drought in monocultures and additive intercrops along a crop diversity gradient—sole maize ( Zea mays ), sole pigeonpea ( Cajanus cajan ), maize-pigeonpea, maize-gliricidia ( Gliricidia sepium , a woody perennial), and maize-pigeonpea-gliricidia—with and without fertilizer application. We developed and tested a novel low-cost, above-canopy rainout shelter design for drought experiments made with locally-sourced materials that successfully reduced soil moisture without creating sizeable artifacts for the crop microenvironment. Drought reduced maize grain yield under fertilized conditions in some cropping systems but did not impact pigeonpea grain yield. Whole-system grain yield and theoretical caloric and protein yields in two intercropping systems, maize-pigeonpea and maize-gliricidia, were similar to the standard sole maize system. Maize-pigeonepea performed most strongly compared to other systems in terms of protein yield. Maize-pigeonpea was the only intercrop that consistently required less land than its corresponding monocultures to produce the same yield (Land Equivalent Ratio >1), particularly under drought. Despite intercropping systems having greater planting density than sole maize and theoretically greater competition for water, they were not more prone to yield loss with drought. Our results show that maize-pigeonpea intercropping provides opportunities to produce the same food on less land under drought and non-drought conditions, without compromising drought resistance of low-input smallholder maize systems.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
A novel low-cost above-canopy rainout shelter design reduced soil moisture without creating sizeable artifacts for the crop microenvironment.
Not reportedTaxonComparator
Verbatim
e0“a novel low-cost, above-canopy rainout shelter design for drought experiments made with locally-sourced materials that successfully reduced soil moisture without creating sizeable artifacts for the crop microenvironment”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought reduced maize grain yield under fertilized conditions in some cropping systems.
- Treatment
- Droughte0
- Outcome
- maize grain yielde0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Qualifier
- under fertilized conditions in some cropping systemse0
Zea maysNot reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Drought reduced maize grain yield under fertilized conditions in some cropping systems”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought did not impact pigeonpea grain yield.
- Taxon
- pigeonpea
Cajanus cajane0 - Treatment
- Droughte0
- Outcome
- pigeonpea grain yielde0
- Direction
- did not impacte0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Drought reduced maize grain yield under fertilized conditions in some cropping systems but did not impact pigeonpea grain yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Whole-system grain yield and theoretical caloric and protein yields in the maize-pigeonpea and maize-gliricidia intercropping systems were similar to the standard sole maize system.
- Treatment
- two intercropping systems, maize-pigeonpea and maize-gliricidiae0
- Outcome
- Whole-system grain yield and theoretical caloric and protein yieldse0
- Direction
- similare0
- Comparator
- the standard sole maize systeme0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Whole-system grain yield and theoretical caloric and protein yields in two intercropping systems, maize-pigeonpea and maize-gliricidia, were similar to the standard sole maize system”
Claim · model-written summary
The maize-pigeonpea system performed most strongly compared with other systems in protein yield.
- Treatment
- Maize-pigeonepeae0
- Outcome
- protein yielde0
- Direction
- performed most stronglye0
- Comparator
- other systemse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Maize-pigeonepea performed most strongly compared to other systems in terms of protein yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Maize-pigeonpea was the only intercrop that consistently required less land than its monocultures for the same yield (Land Equivalent Ratio above 1), particularly under drought.
- Treatment
- Maize-pigeonpeae0
- Outcome
- Land Equivalent Ratioe0
- Direction
- required less lande0
- Value
- >1e0
- Qualifier
- particularly under droughte0
- Comparator
- its corresponding monoculturese0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Maize-pigeonpea was the only intercrop that consistently required less land than its corresponding monocultures to produce the same yield (Land Equivalent Ratio >1), particularly under drought”
Claim · model-written summary
Intercropping systems, despite greater planting density than sole maize, were not more prone to yield loss with drought.
- Treatment
- intercropping systemse0
- Outcome
- yield loss with droughte0
- Direction
- not more pronee0
- Comparator
- sole maizee0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Despite intercropping systems having greater planting density than sole maize and theoretically greater competition for water, they were not more prone to yield loss with drought”
The same questions in other papers
drought · yield · Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea)Results differ
4 papers in the same direction as this paper · 3 in the opposite direction
- positive
- positive
- positive
4 papers more in this group
See all 8 papers →intercropping · quality: protein · Zea mays (maize)Positive and negative results
2 papers in the same direction as this paper · 47 reporting no difference from an alternative
- positive
- positive
- positive
46 papers more in this group
See all 50 papers →drought · yield · Zea mays (maize)Positive and negative results
299 papers in the same direction as this paper · 53 in the opposite direction
- positive
- positive
- positive
349 papers more in this group
See all 353 papers →intercropping · yield · Zea mays (maize)Positive and negative results
220 papers in the same direction as this paper · 613 reporting no difference from an alternative
- positive
- positive
- positive
830 papers more in this group
See all 834 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.