Modern “intensive” agriculture drives the biodiversity-climate crisis but is also central to global food security. Future farming needs management approaches that maintain (or even enhance) food production while reducing negative climate and biodiversity impacts. Intercrops could provide part of the solution, increasing biodiversity and boosting production with fewer inputs. However, barriers remain to their wide-scale uptake, in particular tailoring intercrops to local equipment, management practice, and environment. We analyze data from multiple trials of cereal-legume intercrops conducted on farms across Europe between 2018 and 2021. Our study is the first attempt, to our knowledge, to quantify the yield benefits of cereal-legume intercropping undertaken at commercially relevant scales for farms across Europe. We used crop performance ratio (CPR)—the ratio of the observed intercrop yield compared to the expected yield based on monoculture yields—as our metric of intercrop performance. Using CPR, we found a roughly 30% yield gain across all sites. However, CPR was modulated by a number of factors. CPR was not strongly affected by management except for the negative effects of direct drilling and the positive effects of organic fertilizer addition. CPR also depended on intercrop composition (number and identity of components), background yields (being highest where yields were lower), and rainfall (being higher with higher rainfall). Our findings allow us to reduce uncertainty about how intercrops will perform in realistic local farm conditions, give guidance for tailoring intercrops to local farming conditions, and provide key goals for further work to integrate intercrops into sustainable farming systems.

现代“集约化”农业引发了生物多样性气候危机，但也是全球粮食安全的核心。未来的农业需要管理方法来维持（甚至提高）粮食生产，同时减少对气候和生物多样性的负面影响。间作作物可以提供部分解决方案，以更少的投入增加生物多样性并提高产量。然而，大规模采用间作作物仍然存在障碍，特别是根据当地设备、管理实践和环境定制间作作物。我们分析了 2018 年至 2021 年间在欧洲农场进行的多项谷类-豆类间作试验的数据。据我们所知，我们的研究是首次尝试量化欧洲农场在商业相关规模上进行谷类-豆类间作的产量效益。欧洲。我们使用作物性能比（CPR）——观察到的间作作物产量与基于单一栽培产量的预期产量的比率——作为间作作物性能的指标。使用 CPR，我们发现所有站点的产量提高了大约 30%。然而，心肺复苏受到许多因素的调节。除了直接钻孔的负面影响和添加有机肥的正面影响外，CPR 并未受到管理的强烈影响。 CPR 还取决于间作作物成分（成分的数量和特性）、背景产量（产量较低的地方产量最高）和降雨量（降雨量越高则产量越高）。我们的研究结果使我们能够减少间作作物在当地实际农场条件下表现的不确定性，为根据当地农业条件定制间作作物提供指导，并为进一步将间作作物纳入可持续农业系统的工作提供关键目标。