Mechanization of Field Plot Experiments Designed to Test Different Intercropping Layouts

The mechanisation of field operations always requires a careful choice of the farm machines to be used, a correct setup of their operative parameters and a prior planning of trajectories, in order to make the best possible use of all the involved material resources. This task can be made even more difficult when operating in an experimental scenario, at plot level, such as the one proposed in the PRIN 2022 PNRR ECO-DRESS project for testing the performance of strip intercropping. According to this project's aim, it was planned to compare, on the same experimental area, several plots differing in terms of the adopted intercropping layout (shape and areal proportion) for the two crops involved in the experimentation (soybean and buckwheat). The present study illustrates in detail the whole set-up and the technical solutions that have been identified, to allow the readers gaining some useful indications about mechanisation of test sites in similar future cases.