Intercropping is a mature and well-known agronomic practice that began to attract interest from the scientific community in the mid-1900s and has known an exponential growth in research activity since the beginning of this century. Over the years, different intercropping indices have been developed to evaluate the performance of this crop production system in comparison to standard monoculture practices. Nowadays, more than 20 of these intercropping indices have been described in scientific literature. This review aims to review these indices and check their performance using a meta-dataset consisting of data points from various intercropping experiments that have been described in peer-reviewed publications. Our results show that different indices evaluate different aspects of intercropping trials and that commonly used indices generally do not capture the full performance of the system. More specifically, intercropping results are influenced by both the total sowing density and the crop ratio and indices differ in the way that these dependencies are accounted for. This study suggests creating a standard protocol for the intercropping trials and their evaluation as crucial elements to optimize intercropping research.

间作是一种成熟且众所周知的农艺实践，在 20 世纪 00 年代中期开始引起科学界的兴趣，并且自本世纪初以来研究活动呈指数增长。多年来，已经开发出不同的间作指数来评估该作物生产系统与标准单一栽培实践相比的性能。如今，科学文献中已描述了 20 多个间作指数。本综述旨在回顾这些指数，并使用元数据集检查其性能，该元数据集由同行评审出版物中描述的各种间作实验的数据点组成。我们的结果表明，不同的指数评估间作试验的不同方面，并且常用的指数通常不能反映系统的全部性能。更具体地说，间作结果受到总播种密度和作物比例的影响，并且指数在解释这些依赖性的方式上有所不同。本研究建议为间作试验及其评估制定标准方案，作为优化间作研究的关键要素。