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Review
. 2023 Jun 18;12(12):2361.
doi: 10.3390/plants12122361.

Intercropping Cover Crops for a Vital Ecosystem Service: A Review of the Biocontrol of Insect Pests in Tea Agroecosystems

Sabin Saurav Pokharel  1 , Han Yu  2 , Wanping Fang  3 , Megha N Parajulee  4 , Fajun Chen  1
Affiliations
Review

Intercropping Cover Crops for a Vital Ecosystem Service: A Review of the Biocontrol of Insect Pests in Tea Agroecosystems

Sabin Saurav Pokharel et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

The intercropping of cover crops has been adopted in several agroecosystems, including tea agroecosystems, which promotes ecological intensification. Prior studies have shown that growing cover crops in tea plantations provided different ecological services, including the biocontrol of pests. Cover crops enrich soil nutrients, reduce soil erosion, suppress weeds and insect pests, and increase the abundance of natural enemies (predators and parasitoids). We have reviewed the potential cover crops that can be incorporated into the tea agroecosystem, particularly emphasizing the ecological services of cover crops in pest control. Cover crops were categorized into cereals (buckwheat, sorghum), legumes (guar, cowpea, tephrosia, hairy indigo, and sunn hemp), aromatic plants (lavender, marigold, basil, and semen cassiae), and others (maize, mountain pepper, white clover, round-leaf cassia, and creeping indigo). Legumes and aromatic plants are the most potent cover crop species that can be intercropped in monoculture tea plantations due to their exceptional benefits. These cover crop species improve crop diversity and help with atmospheric nitrogen fixation, including with the emission of functional plant volatiles, which enhances the diversity and abundance of natural enemies, thereby assisting in the biocontrol of tea insect pests. The vital ecological services rendered by cover crops to monoculture tea plantations, including regarding the prevalent natural enemies and their pivotal role in the biocontrol of insect pests in the tea plantation, have also been reviewed. Climate-resilient crops (sorghum, cowpea) and volatile blends emitting aromatic plants (semen cassiae, marigold, flemingia) are recommended as cover crops that can be intercropped in tea plantations. These recommended cover crop species attract diverse natural enemies and suppress major tea pests (tea green leaf hopper, white flies, tea aphids, and mirid bugs). It is presumed that the incorporation of cover crops within the rows of tea plantations will be a promising strategy for mitigating pest attacks via the conservation biological control, thereby increasing tea yield and conserving agrobiodiversity. Furthermore, a cropping system with intercropped cover crop species would be environmentally benign and offer the opportunity to increase natural enemy abundance, delaying pest colonization and/or preventing pest outbreaks for pest management sustainability.

Keywords: biological control; cover crops; ecosystem services; environmentally benign; natural enemies; sustainable pest management; tea agroecosystem.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the writing of the manuscript.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effects of intensive monoculture in the tea plantations.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trophic groups’ interactions among cover crops, insect herbivores, and natural enemies (predators and parasitoids) in the tea agroecosystem.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Ecosystem services provided by cover crop intercropping in the tea agroecosystem.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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