Benefits from mixed crops

Redesigning arable systems to include mixed-cropping helps increase yields, encourage carbon storage and improve soil quality, according to an Australian soil health expert.

Joel Williams of independent consultancy Integrated Soils said improving crop variation can optimise the ways plants scavenge nutrients, ultimately helping to improve their performance.

“Diversity brings resilience, as different crops have different growth rates, root structures and root depths,” he told growers at an Organic Farmers and Growers event in Shifnal, Shropshire.

“Scavenge different parts of the soil, improving structure”

“They scavenge different parts of the soil, improving structure and making use of different microbes.”

Research had shown that crop diversity also increases the amounts of fungi in the soil, which can help with capturing and sequestering carbon, as well as increasing crop yields and diversity, Mr Williams said.

“Studies in France of wheat co-planted with faba beans found that– over three years–not only did wheat yields increase, but the bean yields increased slightly too.

“That means that not only are you getting increases in yields of your main crop, but you get a free crop of faba beans. What’s more, the protein content in the wheat was higher than when it was grown alone.”

Though harvesting the second crop is an option, many farmers use co-planting to improve soil structure by allowing it to decompose and feed the cash crop.