This article**: People's Daily Online.
People's Daily Online, Beijing, February 27 (Fang Jinglun) According to the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, recently, the Chinese Academy of Thermal Sciences has made new progress in the research on the complementary mechanism of vine and tree mixed ecological planting, and by comparing the root attributes and spatial distribution differences between liana and arbor, it is clear that the underground attributes of liana pepper and arbor betel nut are quite different, and the functional dispersion index is high, which means that the two have a high level of niche differentiation, which can better realize niche complementarity and improve community productivity and invasion resistance.
Species blending produces a larger biomass than monoculture and is important for understanding the role of biodiversity in natural and agricultural systems. At present, it is unclear whether the differences in root traits and spatial distribution of lianas and trees can promote the improvement of mixed cropping productivity.
In this study, the effects of root traits and root spatial distribution of independently cultivated liana pepper and five woody plants on yield were studied by indoor potted plants and multi-year field combination experiments. In the indoor pot experiment, pepper was mixed with one of five plants, including Arabica coffee, betel nut, camellia oleifera, jackfruit and Robusta coffee, and the mechanism of interaction dominance was studied by each plant as a control. In the field experiment, a pepper-betel nut mixed cropping system was selected for the validation test. The results of laboratory experiments showed that the root attributes of Liana pepper and five tree plants were quite different, and the complementary effect of mixed cropping was strong, which was mainly determined by the differences in multidimensional root spatial traits and some specific individual traits (root acid phosphatase activity and mycorrhizal infection) between pepper and matching crops. The results of field experiments showed that mixed cropping reduced the polymerization ratio of pepper and betel nut roots in the horizontal direction, realized the spatial separation of roots, and promoted the increase of yield. Therefore, the differences in root traits and spatial distribution may be an important mechanism for the improvement of the productivity of liana and tree mixed cropping.