Sustainable Cropping Systems

Post-graduate course

Sustainable Cropping Systems
at different levels of integration

29 June - 9 July, 2025

Gansu, China

Scope
Due to climate change and an ever-growing human pressure on the environment and its resources, the sustainability of cropping systems is of increasing concern as this is the basis of feeding the world in the future. In the past decades an increasing amount of attention has been given to the concept of intercropping as a means to make cropping systems more sustainable and resource use efficient.

The effectivity of intercropping depends on a suite of (in)dependant (a)biotic factors. Thus, to understand the functionality of intercropping an interdisciplinary approach is required, looking at different levels of integration (e.g., plant, crop, field and farm) addressing both below and above ground states and processes.

This course will focus on these factors where a central focus will be on below-ground processes. Besides discussing the influence of the available resources on the success of intercropping, soil-root, root-root interactions will obtain much attention.

Mornings consist of 2-3 lectures, each followed by 30 minutes discussion. Afternoons are spent on group assignments where each group of participants will be assigned to address a certain challenge in intercropping and how this can be tackled.

Outcomes of the course and group work will be presented at the International Workshop on Plant-soil-microbe interactions as a basis for intercropping success and Green Crop Production (July 7-8, 2025. Beijing, China).  The main goal of this workshop is to bring together a diverse group of top researchers interested in the topic of sustainable crop and pasture systems to synthesize recent progress; in addition, to jointly publish a perspective paper, summarizing key progress and future outlook from crop systems in a high-profile journal. Participants also participate in this workshop.

Course set-up

1. Poster carousel: 
   After a general welcome and introduction, there will be a poster carousel during which participants present themselves, their research and interest in the course. The carousel involves 5 sessions of 15 minutes, where 5-6 posters will be presented per session. Participants give a 5-minute introduction followed by 10 minutes discussion. Posters will remain in the lecture room throughout the course.
    
2. Lectures and Discussion:
   Each day starts with 2-3  30-minute lectures that cover the scope of the day. Each lecture is followed by 30 minutes discussion in which participants discuss with the speaker the presented topic based on the speaker’s lecture and a paper (s)he submitted prior to the course and which participants must have read as preparation. 
    
3. Group work:
   Afternoons and evenings are spent on group work. Participants will work in groups of about 5 people on a challenge on required knowledge and insight on the soil system at different spatial and temporal scales, and levels of integration root to optimise the production and sustainability of cropping system The challenges that groups can work on will be presented at the start of the course.

   The group activity is supervised / convened by the lecturers and course organizers. Output of the groupwork will be a slide presentation that groups will present at the end of the symposium. This will be a 5-minute pitch with 3 slides (1: What is the question/issue? 2: Analysis of the question/issue, 3: How should it be tackled) followed by 5 minutes questions from the audience. 

International Workshop on Plant-soil-microbe Interactions for Green Crop Production
After the course participants attend this workshop in which they will also present the output of the course.

Research visit (Gansu)
During the course, participants will visit demonstrations of intercropping systems and long-term experiments in Wuwei and Zhangye of Gansu Province, on the last day there will be an option to visit Mogao caves and Mingsha Mountain Crescent Spring in Dunhuang.

Course Organisers and lecturers:

• Hans Lambers (University of Western Australia / Distinguished Professor China Agricultural University)
• Kadambot Siddique (University of Western Australia)
• Luiz Domeignoz-Horta (AgroParis Tech, France)
• Kyle Davis (University of Delaware)
• Nicolas Munier-Jolain (INRAE, France)
• Rui-Peng Yu (China Agricultural University)
• Wen-Feng Cong (China Agricultural University)
• Claudius van de Vijver (Graduate School Production Ecology and Resource Conservation (PE&RC), the Netherlands)
   

Programme:

International Symposium on Sustainable Crop and Pasture Systems (SCPS) and research visit

General information

Fee

The course and symposium are free of charge for all International, non-Chinese* PhD’s provided that they are present for the complete duration of the course, symposium and working visit.  Moreover, PE&RC and WIMEK PhD participants receive a € 300,- support to cover air fair expenses.

* = This is a regulation stated by the funding agency of the course in China. 

For more information contact: 

Claudius van de Vijver (PE&RC) (claudius.vandevijver@wur.nl)

For registration fill in below: