To increase our understanding of the advantages of intercropping gramineae crops with legume crops, we conducted a field trial comparing a maize monoculture system, a maize鄄peanut intercropping system, and a maize鄄soybean intercropping system with or without application of fertilizer. For each system, we determined maize grain quality (starch, protein, oil, and lysine content) , economic and biological yields per plant, crop yield per km 2 , abundance of microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, and nitrogen鄄fixing bacteria) and activities of various enzymes (invertase, dehydrogenase, urease, and phosphatase) in soils (pH = 6. 2). The field experiment was carried out on upland red soil at the Experimental Station of Jiangxi Agricultural University (latitude 28毅 46忆N, longitude 115毅 36忆E, altitude 22. 1 m above sea level) from 9 April 2011 to 25 July 2011. The experimental plan comprised six treatments (i. e. , 3 伊 2) and each

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