Impact of maize, hemp and faba bean inter-cropping on biomass productivity

Currently, the requirements of the Green Deal are especially relevant, due to which in the coming 2023 – 2027 years, consumption of fertilizers and crop protection products will have to be significantly reduced. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to ensure proper crop nutrition and protection, but this must be done in other, much more environmentally friendly ways. In order to meet all the necessary conditions for biomass cultivation, experiments are being carried out in the cultivation of multifunctional crops with increased biodiversity. One way to increase crops biomass production is to increase crop functionality, whereby the main crop is seeded together with other crops species. Such crops provide not only the main nutritional and/or feed products (grains, seeds, sugar), but also the secondary products, including yield wastes, which can be used to produce feeds and to others energetic purposes like biofuel.

A stationary field experiment was carried out at the Experimental Station of Vytautas Magnus University. Maize (Zea mays L.), industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) and faba bean (Vicia faba L.) as mono, binary and trinomial crops cultivations were investigated. The aim of the present investigation was to increase productivity of the mentioned cultivation by using inter-cropping. Data of 2021 is presented.

According to the results of investigations, crop diversification had a significant impact on the dry biomass of crops, and the best results were obtained in the trinomial maize x hemp x faba bean cultivation.