Intercropping is a key entry point for sustainable intensification of cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa where variable rainfall conditions prevail. Crop simulation models can complement field experiments to assess the agronomic and environmental performances of intercropping systems under diverse climatic conditions, including hypothetical fut...
Lianas are abundant and diverse in tropical forests and impact forest dynamics. They occupy part of the canopy, forming a layer of leaves overtopping tree crowns. Yet, their interaction with trees has been mainly studied from the ground. With the emergence of drone-based sensing, very high-resolution data may be obtained on liana distribution above...
Key message: A novel multi-environment competition individual-tree mixed model resulted in better fit, and greater individual narrow- and broad-sense heritabilities than the model without competition, notably for traits showing competition. In multi-environment tests, the proposed model would allow tree breeders to select genotypes with the best pe...
Modern agriculture needs to develop transition pathways toward agroecological, resilient and sustainable farming systems. One key pathway for such agroecological intensification is the diversification of cropping systems using intercropping and notably cereal-grain legume mixtures. Such mixtures or intercrops have the potential to increase and stab...
Beninese smallholders associate food crops and cash crops with immature oil palms to reduce field maintenance costs and gain income before the palms reach productive phase. Little is known about the effects of these crops on the nutritional status and growth of the palms in their immature phase even though the yield of adult palms can be affected b...
Sixty year ago, Charles Elton posed that species-rich communities should be more resistant to biological invasion. Still, little is known about which processes could drive the diversity–invasibility relationship. Here we examined whether soil-microbe-mediated apparent competition on alien invaders is more negative when the soil originates from mult...
Introducing permanently an associated crop in rubber plantations may improve biodiversity and soil cover, optimize resource use, and diversify farmer's income. However, the associated crop may also compete with the rubber trees for resources such as space and water. The case of bamboo-rubber agroforestry system is peculiar, as bamboos present featu...
Olive-based agroforestry with annual crops is wide spread in Northern Morocco and more generally in the Mediterranean, but poor information is available on their functioning in the context of increasing aridity. In order to evaluate the changes in tree-crop interactions due to water shortage, we assessed the productivity of both a cereal (durum whe...
Intercropping bananas with cover crops is a promising alternative to chemical weed control. In this study, we evaluated two legume species Neonotonia wightii (NW) and Centrosema pascuorum (CP) for their weed control ability in a banana plantation. The impact of these living covers on soil nitrogen content and on banana productivity was also evaluat...
