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Relay cropping as a sustainable approach: problems and opportunities for sustainable crop production

  • Review Article
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Abstract

Climate change, soil degradation, and depletion of natural resources are becoming the most prominent challenges for crop productivity and environmental sustainability in modern agriculture. In the scenario of conventional farming system, limited chances are available to cope with these issues. Relay cropping is a method of multiple cropping where one crop is seeded into standing second crop well before harvesting of second crop. Relay cropping may solve a number of conflicts such as inefficient use of available resources, controversies in sowing time, fertilizer application, and soil degradation. Relay cropping is a complex suite of different resource-efficient technologies, which possesses the capability to improve soil quality, to increase net return, to increase land equivalent ratio, and to control the weeds and pest infestation. The current review emphasized relay cropping as a tool for crop diversification and environmental sustainability with special focus on soil. Briefly, benefits, constraints, and opportunities of relay cropping keeping the goals of higher crop productivity and sustainability have also been discussed in this review. The research and knowledge gap in relay cropping was also highlighted in order to guide the further studies in future.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful questions and suggestions which have made this paper better.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

    Mohsin Tanveer

  2. Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan

    Mohsin Tanveer, Shakeel Ahmad Anjum & Saddam Hussain

  3. Soil Erosion and Degradation Research Group, University of València, València, Spain

    Artemi Cerdà

  4. Soil Physics and Land Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Artemi Cerdà

  5. Department of Crop Science and Technology, College of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Umair Ashraf

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  1. Mohsin Tanveer
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Correspondence to Mohsin Tanveer.

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Tanveer, M., Anjum, S.A., Hussain, S. et al. Relay cropping as a sustainable approach: problems and opportunities for sustainable crop production. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 6973–6988 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-8371-4

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