Wheat

To understand how strip cropping and other diverse crop management strategies affect herbivore, weed and disease pressure.

Standard practice:

Organically grown monoculture field of wheat (3500m2)
Herbicides: Clopyralid, Florasulam, Fluroxypyr meptyl

Adopt-IPM solution:

16-meter-wide strip cropping of wheat with grass-clover, and
3-meter-wide strip cropping of wheat with seven other crops (early and late potato, onion, carrot, faba bean and grass-clover).

Experimental design

Incomplete block design. Two locations, Wageningen and Lelystad, with at least two blocks each including all Strip treatments. Also, a large-scale monoculture per crop is included.

(See Figures)

Replications

Two locations, with 3 (Wageningen) and 1 (Lelystad) fields that include all four strip crop designs. These fields include 2 strips per treatment in which measurements take place.

Plot size

One strip is about 3 * 55 meters. Monocultural field is about 3500 m2.

Trial Duration 

Planned start date: 2023 Planned end date: 2025

Location

Both locations are managed organically without the use of biological or chemical pesticides. The fields in Wageningen are located north of the Wageningen University campus (51°59’24″N, 5°39’36″E, 13 masl), as part of a larger network of experimental fields. The soil type is loamy sand. The surrounding landscape is quite diverse with many relatively small experimental fields (<5 ha) and semi-natural habitats like tree lines and ditches. The experimental fields are enclosed by other smaller experimental plots of Wageningen University to the south, a small-scale farm to the west, larger experimental fields to the north, and a busy regional road to the east.

The fields at Lelystad are located east of the city of Lelystad at the Wageningen Research Field Crops location (52°32’33″N 5°34’23″E, -4 mbsl). The soil type here is sandy clay loam, claimed from the sea in 1957. The surrounding landscape consists mainly of larger scale experimental fields (5 – 10 ha) and large-scale agriculture (10 – 40 ha), with some small semi-natural habitats throughout the landscape, like small waterways and flower strips.

Randomization Procedure

The four strip crop design treatments are randomly assigned in stripcropping fields. The reference monoculture oat and cabbage crops (standard practice) rotate to different fields according to the crop rotation (see also experimental layouts of the Wageningen and Lelystad trial sites).

Sample Size Justification

We maximized the number of sample size within the available budget and labour constraints.

Data Collection

Clip cages and camera trapping of aphids and their natural enemies. Two years of data have been collected in multiple strip cropping designs (in 2023 and 2024). In 2025, at least measurements will be taken in the monoculture and simplest strip cropping design. Potentially we will also still sample in the other strip cropping designs, but this is not decided yet.

Statistical Methods

Most data will be analysed using General(ized) Linear (Mixed) Models.