Wheat–maize intercropping​#

Research context: Oriane Braud and collaborators · wheat–maize relay intercrops.

How much does the arrangement of two crops change the light received by each species? In a relay intercrop, wheat and maize occupy the same field during part of their cycles. Their changing heights, leaf areas, and row positions create a light environment that varies within and between rows.

From crop development to 3D light​#

The workflow combines crop development simulated with STICS, plant architecture reconstructed with ArchiCrop, and explicit wheat–maize row arrangements. ArchimedLight is used on the resulting scenes to resolve light at organ scale. Comparing scenes through time helps show where a canopy-average description can hide differences between species or between border and interior rows.

The figure illustrates changes in row proportions and orientation. The same colour scale lets you compare the light distribution across all four scenes; the bright upper maize leaves and more shaded wheat show why spatial position matters.

Source code​#

Reproducible code for this application is available at ArchiCropforSTICS-IC_light.

Research context and reference​#

Braud, O., Pradal, C., Arsouze, T., Jaeger, M., Adam, M., and Vezy, R. (2026). Where do homogeneity assumptions break for intercrops? A dynamic 3D modelling approach to evaluate light interception formalisms in crop models. FSPM 2026, Montpellier, France. Conference programme.

To work with a similar scene, see scene files and semantics, boundary conditions, and light outputs.