Exploring sustainable production model of Jiaobai (Zizania caduciflora L.) through strategic biodiversity deloyments

Biodiversity is the outcome of the long term evolutionary process of different organisms on the Earth, and its service function has a tremendous significance in human activities. In general, a relatively low level of biodiversity is identified in the agro ecosystem because of the uniformity of this system, which causes the decrease in complexity and stability of the system. The modern agricultural practices with extensive and intensive farming activities have significantly accelerated the procedure of the uniformization of the agro ecosystem, which has led to apparent deterioration and imbalanced circumstances of the agro ecosystems and other related ecosystems. As a consequence, the occurrences, epidemics, and even outbreaks of diseases,insects and weed become more and more frequent in the agricultural ecosystems, causing immense problems for agriculture productivity. One of the most important approaches for the sustainable agriculture development is to reinstate the already deteriorated agro ecosystem and to improve the agricultural production environment. During the restoration process, the appropriate deployment of biodiversity of crop species or varieties will play an important role in the significant enhancement of biodiversity in the agro ecosystems. Practically speaking, biodiversity deployment includes intercropping and relaying with an appropriate cultivation model, and this practice has been proven to be very powerful for disease and insect control. Based on the major problems identified in sustainable production of Jiaobai ( Zizania caduciflora L.) in Zhejiang Province, we believe it is necessary to introduce the concept of biodiversity deployment in Jiaobai production accordingly. It is also very important to study and determine effective models for the sustainable Jiaobai production practices with Zhejiang's own characteristics and achievable techniques.