Harnessing the Potential of Wheat-Pea Species Mixtures: Evaluation of Multifunctional Performance and Wheat Diversity.

Species mixtures and heterogeneous crop populations are two promising approaches for diversified ecological cropping systems with increased resilience and reduced dependency on external inputs. Inter- and intraspecific diversity were evaluated in combination using 15 wheat () entries, including line cultivars and heterogeneous populations (HPs), from central Europe and Hungary and one winter pea cultivar under organic conditions. Monocultures and wheat mixtures were evaluated multi-functionally for yield, quality, land use efficiency, crop protection, and wheat entry traits.

Supply Chain Perspectives on Breeding for Legume-Cereal Intercrops.

Compared to sole crops, intercropping-especially of legumes and cereals-has great potential to improve crop yield and resource use efficiency, and can provide many other ecosystem services. However, the beneficial effects of intercrops are often greatly dependent on the end use as well as the specific species and genotypes being co-cultivated. In addition, intercropping imposes added complexity at different levels of the supply chain.