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A study on the improvement iron nutrition of peanut intercropping with maize on nitrogen fixation at early stages of growth of peanut on a calcareous soil

Abstract A glasshouse study employing a split-root technique was conducted to investigate the influence of intercropping with maize (Zea mays L.) in a calcareous soil on N2 fixation by peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) at early stages of growth. In this intercropping system, competitive interactions between maize and peanut for N and improvement of Fe uptake were likely to be important factors affecting N2 fixation of peanut. The experiment was comprised of three treatments which included treatment I: peanut monocropping; treatment II: maize/peanut intercropping (the major and the minor compartments with low N, 50 mg kg−1); treatment III: maize/peanut intercropping (the major compartment with low N, 50 mg kg−1 and the minor compartment with high, N 200 mg kg−1). The minor compartment of treatment III was fertilized with 200 mg kg−1 N for reducing or eliminating the competition of N coming from intercropping maize. Intercropping with maize corrected Fe chlorosis of peanut by significantly increasing plant Fe concentration and uptake. Compared with the monocropping treatment, iron uptake increased from intercropping treatment II and III by 22 and 24% per plant, 30 and 29% shoots, 38 and 60% nodules. Iron uptake by the root nodules was especially enhanced in the intercropping system. In contrast, intercropping with maize had little effect on NO3 −1-N concentrations in the soil rhizosphere of peanut or on N concentrations and uptake by peanut compared with plants in monoculture. The results indicate that the improvement in Fe nutrition was an important factor promoting N2 fixation by peanut in the intercropping system at the flowering stage of peanut growth, and that competition for N by intercropped maize had little effect on N2 fixation by peanut under the experimental conditions.