Cereal variety mixtures and populations for sustainable agriculture: a review
2016
Locmele, I., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia);Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Priekuli, Priekuli parish, Priekuli Municipality (Latvia). Inst. of Agricultural Resources and Economics | Legzdina, L., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia);Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Priekuli, Priekuli parish, Priekuli Municipality (Latvia). Inst. of Agricultural Resources and Economics | Gaile, Z., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia) | Kronberga, A., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia);Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Priekuli, Priekuli parish, Priekuli Municipality (Latvia). Inst. of Agricultural Resources and Economics
Modern varieties developed under conventional plant breeding programs do not always perform well under organic and low-input growing conditions. Therefore, organic farmers need varieties adapted to variable environmental conditions. This means emphasis on traits such as nutrient uptake and use efficiency, good weed suppression ability and disease resistance and can be achieved via extended genetic diversity within the varieties: variety mixtures and populations of self-pollinating crops. The aim of the present study was to review published scientific literature about importance and research results on this topic. Scientific articles about the necessity of such studies and results of investigations performed in different countries have been studied. The main results show that variety mixtures have advantages in terms of disease control and yield stabilization and performance of mixtures may be affected by various factors – choice of components and its number, interactions between plants of components, manner of the mixing and growing technology. Depending on parental material, populations contain greater genetic diversity than variety mixtures. There are trends observed in the studies that yield of populations increased over generations and they are more stable than modern varieties, but there is no evidence that they would be significantly more productive. This research direction has recently become topical and is not sufficiently widely covered in the world agricultural science. The obtained results are inconsistent.
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