ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1588096
Intercropping with faba bean under appropriate row configuration increases root yield and active ingredient content of Codonopsis pilosula
Provisionally accepted
- Shanxi Agricultural University, Jinzhong, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Continuous cultivation of the medicinal herb Codonopsis pilosula (C. pilosula) declines root yield and active ingredient content. Scientific and reasonable intercropping patterns can improve yield and active ingredient accumulation. However, how intercropping systems affect root yield and active ingredient content of C.pilosula is still poorly understood. We conducted a field experiment with four treatments, including monoculture C. pilosula (MC), one row of C. pilosula intercropping with one row of faba bean (IC1), two rows of C. pilosula intercropping with one row of faba bean (IC2), and four rows of C. pilosula intercropping with one row of faba bean (IC3), to explore the response of leaf traits, root yield, and active ingredient content of C. pilosula to cropping patterns. The results showed that intercropping significantly increased the root yield of C. pilosula by 7.0-18.7%, lobetyolin yield by 8.6-25.2%, atractylenolide III yield by 34.2-54.0%, and syringin yield by 31.1-53.4% compared to monoculture, and the largest yield advantage occurred in IC2. The results also showed that intercropping significantly improves leaf size, net photosynthetic rate, and C metabolism enzyme activity of C. pilosula.Correlation analysis and partial least squares path model showed that improved root and active ingredient yield in intercropping can be attributed to enhanced leaf photosynthesis and C metabolism, indicating that appropriate row configuration in C. pilosula/faba bean intercropping system could increase the yield of C. pilosula by enhancing light use efficiency. These findings suggest that two rows of C. pilosula intercropping with one row of faba bean is a promising approach to establishing a high-yield and sustainable C. pilosula agroecosystem.
Keywords: Traditional Chinese Medicine, Crop diversity, Aboveground interaction, light interception, Light use efficiency
Received: 05 Mar 2025; Accepted: 13 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Qin, Chen, Miao, Yang, Zhang and Xing. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Qiang Zhang, Shanxi Agricultural University, Jinzhong, China
Yi Xing, Shanxi Agricultural University, Jinzhong, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.