Abstract
During two seasons, this study assessed the forage yield of legume–cereal mixed crops including common vetch, Narbon vetch or pea grown together with oat or triticale, and their respective pure stands; verified the effect of mixture complexity; and assessed differences between a semi-dwarf and a tall pea type in pure stand and in mixtures. Crop mixtures including common vetch and oat generally gave highest dry-matter yield. The best mixtures over-yielded the pure stands of their component species. In a participative farmer assessment, legume pure stands and legume-based mixtures were more appreciated than cereal monocultures. On average, binary mixtures out-yielded the pure stands by 22 %. Any advantage of complex mixtures (four components) over simple mixtures appeared to be influenced by legume species and climatic conditions. Some superiority of the semi-dwarf pea type over the tall type was only observed in the first (wetter) season, possibly due to its better resistance to lodging.
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Acknowledgments
This study was carried out in the framework of the FP7-ArimNet project “Resilient, water- and energy-efficient forage and feed crops for Mediterranean agricultural systems (REFORMA)”. The pea material was developed by CRA-FLC with the support of the project “Plant Genetic Resources – FAO Treaty” funded by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Policy
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Thami Alami, I., Pecetti, L., Souihka, A., Annicchiarico, P. (2016). Optimizing Species and Variety Choice in Legume–Cereal Mixtures as Forage Crops in a Dry Mediterranean Region. In: Roldán-Ruiz, I., Baert, J., Reheul, D. (eds) Breeding in a World of Scarcity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28932-8_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28932-8_32
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