Legumes and cereal yield on intercropping versus monocropping pattern systems field experiments in Senegal, Madagascar and Kenya

The intercropping practice where two or more cultivated plants are associated is considered as a relevant practice to contribute to sustainable development and natural resource management. These cropping patterns have been actually largely used in tropical smallholders farming systems. However, multiple fields experiments on intercropping cropping system compared to monocropping or rotation systems were scarce. That's why new fields experiments have been carried out in a research program on the soil microbial diversity for the management of soil ecosystem services in the tropics (Microbes-ANR). Indeed, three field trials testing different cropping patterns with cereal and legume plants were implemented in Senegal, Madagascar and Kenya. This communication presents the crop yields during the first three years of these experiments. We analyzed more particularly the interaction between the two cultivated plants in the intercropping cropping systems relative to the pedoclimatic situation. The hypothesis was that the legume and the cereal production could mutually take advantage when they were associated on the same field.