INTERVEG - Enhancing multifunctional benefits of cover crops − vegetables intercropping

Summary

From 2011 to 2015, in the frame of InterVeg project, four field experiments were carried out in Italy, Slovenia, Germany and Denmark in order to study the effect of the living mulch introduction.
In 4 different European climatic areas, ecological services have been exploited by use of living mulches in intercropping systems for production of vegetable crops.
What is Living Mulch?
Living Mulch can be defined as a cover crop intercropped with a main crop: the practice of growing two (or more) crops simultaneously in the same area offers a great potential to enhance the ecological support functions of agro-ecosystems at field and farm scale, thus increasing crop production sustainability. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that intercropping can significantly enhance crop productivity compared to sole cropping since it grants a higher land utilization efficiency, efficient nutrients and water resources use.
The main challenge of InterVeg project was to find the most complete and exhaustive answer to the following question:
Can high yields be attained in intercropping systems for production of resource demanding crops such as the vegetables?
The video tells the project results and shows how in very diverse climatic and geographic situations, agricultural choices can have positive impacts on the whole agricultural chain.