Kitchen Gardeners International: All about intercropping

You plant crops, but have you ever "intercropped" your crops? Chances are that you have without realizing it. Intercropping is like companion planting, except that it has more to do with finding two crops that fit well with one another in terms of space, sun and nutrient needs than it does matching complimentary plant personality types.

Here's how one useful Danish website explains it:

Intercropping is considered as the practical application of ecological principles such as diversity, crop interaction and other natural regulation mechanisms. Intercropping is defined as the growth of two or more crops in proximity in the same field during a growing season to promote interaction between them. Available growth resources, such as light, water and nutrients are more completely absorbed and converted to crop biomass by the intercrop as a result of differences in competitive ability for growth factors between intercrop components. The more efficient utilization of growth resources leads to yield advantages and increased stability compared to sole cropping.

Posted by KGI on July 18, 2006 1:22 PM to Kitchen Gardeners International
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