Yielding ability and farmers’ acceptability of annual and perennial legume-based forage crop treatments in two Mediterranean regions

Climate change and socio-economic factors jeopardize the already limited feed self-sufficiency of rainfed Mediterranean crop-livestock systems. New strategies are needed to increase their productivity and resilience. Opportunities and limitations offered by annual and perennial crop species and by different crop managements, such as sole crop or intercropping, should be explored. This study provided an unprecedented comparison of 21 forage crop treatments encompassing seven species, including annual and perennial legume-based mixtures and their respective sole crops. Forage yielding ability and farmers’ acceptability were assessed in two regions of the Mediterranean basin featuring different drought stress level (inland Morocco and Sardinia). The study also verified the effects of crop mixture complexity and different plant trait architecture within lucerne and pea. Legume-based perennial crops showed a consistent yield advantage over legume-based annual crops, both as sole crops and mixtures. Adapted lucerne germplasm proved to be a remarkable forage resource for both regions, highly appreciated by farmers. Some useful species complementarity was found for lucerne intercropped with perennial grasses, allowing for a greater seasonal forage availability in Sardinia. Valuable binary mixtures with high forage yield, balanced legume proportion, and appreciation by farmers were observed in annual crops. Pea emerged as a promising alternative to the more widely used common vetch. A superiority of complex mixtures over binary mixtures emerged only for perennials in Morocco. Farmers of both regions assigned greater appreciation to legumes than to grasses or cereals when assessing sole crops or mixtures, showing awareness of the greater value of legumes for animal feeding and soil fertility.