Intercropping for disease management is a promising strategy for integrated disease management and agroecological transition, although experimental and modelling studies are scarce.

During my postdoc between the UMRs Ecosys and AGAP, I used modelling and experimental data, to explore  on epidemics and disease reduction :

- the potential effect of intercropping

- the relative contribution of different processes (dilution vs. barrier effects)

- the effects of different practices around intercropping (i.e., species choice, N fertilization, companion proportion, sowing date, traits)

This postdoc indicates that intercropping can significantly reduce fungal epidemics on wheat, and intercropping management practices and driving ecological processes (dilution vs. barrier effects) can be optimized for effective disease management in wheat-legume intercrops. These findings also pave the way for identifying field indicators to predict epidemics. However, this postdoc mainly stressed the critical lack of experimental data on disease in intercropping context.