The development of intercropping in rubber tree (Hevea
brasiliensis Muell. Arg.) plantation began in the 1950s in
China. In the 1950s, the expansion of rubber plantation
area brought up issues of land use in immature rubber
plantations, especially due to shortage of grain, so the
main purpose of intercropping was to provide the rubber
grower agricultural food products. During the 1970s-
1980s, intercropping was put on the agenda due to
damages of natural disasters such as typhoon, and the
scale, efficiency and techniques of intercropping had
been developed in an unprecedented way until the mid of
1980s. With the development of economic reform and
opening up to the outside world, people’s living standards
have been greatly improved, and the productivity and
product quality of intercrops in rubber plantations have
been challenged or affected by other reasons, for
instance, the lack of market of some intercrops such as
tea, Alphinia in intercropping patterns rubber/tea and rubber/Alpinia oxyphylla which gradually lost their market
(Lin et al., 1999).
In the past, intercrops were positioned as second-line
crops to increase the land use capacity, yield per unit
area, income and employment opportunities (Lin et al.,
1999). However, with the increment of disastrous weather
events due to global climate change and ecological
awareness, and the decrement of land for growing other
crops due to the fact that majority of lands have been
covered with rubber tree, as well as the demand of agriculture
industrialization due to marketization of products,
it is also very important to stabilize income of farmers for
whole production span, especially in the period after
natural disaster or market stagnant, to produce food and
vegetable for the people or to enrich biodiversity of rubber
plantations in the area of hundred-miles rubber plantation
in China so that intercrops are no longer as underpart
and should be industrially planted as regular crops during
the whole rubber production span of rubber tree.
Nevertheless, most other crops generally do not grow as
tall as rubber tree, and hence with the development of the
rubber canopy, the practicality of inter-planting crops
which demand fairly high amounts of radiation is not feasible (Rodrigo, 2001). Due to most economically
important crops, most of which are heliophilous plants of
which the photosynthetic characteristics are difficult to
improve, cannot be grown under the heavy shade of a
mature rubber tree, should rubber-based cropping
systems be improved into rubber-intercrops commensal
cropping systems, which are most feasible to form a new
planting system and allow greater light penetration for
intercrops, to instead of the traditional planting systems of
rubber
In this context, a new planting pattern in which more
space and light would be provided to facilitate intercropping
during the whole production span of rubber tree
based on a new clone of rubber tree was studied.