Mono-culture is a biggest brainwash of 20th century. Greed based agriculture is a total failure. Unfortunately, this brainwash is so intense that many educated citizens still believe that chemical based mono-culture agriculture is the answer for world-hunger! 😀

“Diverse plant communities are more successful and enable higher crop yields than pure monocultures, a research team has discovered. The scientists are convinced that the cultivation of crop mixtures in agriculture and forestry will play a key role in food safety in the future.”

I laughed when I read this line : “The scientists are convinced..”

What nonsense! Convinced for what? Common sense? This is common sense! Mono-culture farming is a killer of civilization. It is huge task ahead for us to reach out to our farmer brothers and open their eyes.

If you still have doubts, read this paper.

Selection for niche differentiation in plant communities increases biodiversity effects

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v515/n7525/full/nature13869.html

In experimental plant communities, relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning have been found to strengthen over time^{1, 2}, a fact often attributed to increased resource complementarity between species in mixtures³ and negative plant–soil feedbacks in monocultures⁴. Here we show that selection for niche differentiation between species can drive this increasing biodiversity effect. Growing 12 grassland species in test monocultures and mixtures, we found character displacement between species and increased biodiversity effects when plants had been selected over 8 years in species mixtures rather than in monocultures. When grown in mixtures, relative differences in height and specific leaf area between plant species selected in mixtures (mixture types) were greater than between species selected in monocultures (monoculture types). Furthermore, net biodiversity and complementarity effects^{1, 2} were greater in mixtures of mixture types than in mixtures of monoculture types. Our study demonstrates a novel mechanism for the increase in biodiversity effects: selection for increased niche differentiation through character displacement. Selection in diverse mixtures may therefore increase species coexistence and ecosystem functioning in natural communities and may also allow increased mixture yields in agriculture or forestry. However, loss of biodiversity and prolonged selection of crops in monoculture may compromise this potential for selection in the longer term.