Harnessing Below and Above-ground Interaction in Diversified Cropping for Sustainable Food Production

Adoption of intensive agricultural practices is essential to ensure food availability and security, addressing the demands of a teeming global population amid limited land resources. Unfortunately, these practices have numerous ecological and environmental consequences. Diversified cropping is an important strategy to limit the existing agricultural challenges and promote sustainable agriculture, maintaining environmental quality and agroecosystem services. The plants and microorganisms interact with each other in the natural ecosystem, which succeeds as rhizosphere and phyllosphere in belowground and aboveground interaction, respectively. Understanding the aboveground and belowground and their interactions in diversified cropping systems is the most important criterion. About 25% soil microbial community is found below ground, which represents the biggest component of the earth’s biodiversity and plays a vital role in nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and soil structure formation. The soil contains roots of the plant, the region which is the rhizosphere, consisting of number of diverse organisms like rhizobacteria and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). Similarly, aboveground interactions in diversified cropping systems such as allelopathy and its role, companion planting strategy, pest and disease management through diversity, pollinators, and their importance, thus, ultimately improving crop yields and soil quality. Hence, the integration of below- and aboveground interaction scenarios of the diversified cropping system to improve soil health, increase food production, and increase farmers’ profitability. Therefore, globally, harnessing the below- and aboveground interactions in the above system could be an effective approach to achieving a more sustainable food production system.