Common millet and soybean intercropping with bio-fertilizer as sustainable practice for managing grain yield and quality
Authors
Šenk, MilenaSimic, Milena
Milojković-Opsenica, Dušanka
Brankov, Milan
Tolimir, Miodrag
Kodranov, Igor
Dragicevic, Vesna
Article (Published version)
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Show full item recordAbstract
Climate changes are one of the biggest threats to food security. Sustainable
agriculture, focused on eco-friendly practices for highly e cient food production,
enables greater resilience and safety. This study experimented on intercropping
and bio-fertilizer application as convenient ecological solutions for crop yield
stability and quality. The experiment was conducted during 2018 and 2020 with
soybean and common millet sown in three sowing patterns: alternating rows,
alternating strips 1 (2 rows of soybean + 2 rows of millet), and alternating strips
2 (2 rows of soybean + 4 rows of millet), as well as sole crops (control), with
or without a bio-fertilizer Coveron. Grain yield and nutrient grain yield response
were calculated through land equivalent ratio (LER) and element-LER (E-LER),
while quality was estimated based on the concentration of antioxidants (phytate
phosphorus, total phenolic compounds, and yellow pigment) and elements in
grains, including potential bio-avai...lability of essential elements. Results revealed
LER values to be >1 for all sowing patterns, with the highest one achieved
in alternating strips 1 (1.38) together with a greater level of all antioxidants in
millet grain. Intercropping significantly enhanced Fe and Mn accumulation in
both crops and simultaneously decreased the concentration of potentially toxic
elements (Al, Cr) in millet grain. Potential bio-availability of essential elements,
expressed through the ratio between phytic acid and Ca, Mg, Fe, and Zn revealed
smaller values in intercropped soybean and millet with the bio-fertilizer. The bio-
fertilizer also increased the concentration of some micro-elements in millet grain,
classifying it as a highly dependent plant to microbial inoculation. Interaction
of intercropping and bio-fertilizer was most pronounced for LER, E-LER, and
accumulation of Fe and Mn in grains. These results highlighted the benefits
of soybean–common millet intercropping, especially in combination with the
bio-fertilizer, in light of enhanced land utilization and nutrient absorption, thus
increasing the resilience of soybean and millet under dry land conditions and
low-input systems toward stability and food security.
Keywords:
grain / sowing pattern / crop combinations / land equivalent ratio / elements / antioxidants / anti-nutrients / bio-availabilitySource:
Frontiers in nutrition, 2023, 10, 1267928-Publisher:
- Frontiers
Funding / projects:
- Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia, institutional funding - 200040 (Maize Research Institute 'Zemun Polje', Belgrade-Zemun) (RS-MESTD-inst-2020-200040)