Growing cereals in a leguminous living mulch bicropping could potentially reduce the need for synthetic inputs to cereal production while preventing losses of nutrients and increasing soil biological activity. The objective of this project was to investigate how bicropping a low input production system for cereals would compare with conventional winter wheat production systems in terms of total biomass, grain yield and biological diversity. The study, carried out between 1994 and 1997, comprised of replicated plot experiments where various factors such as nitrogen and fungicide use were examined in both a conventional system of production and in a bicropped system. In the latter, winter wheat cv. Hereward was direct drilled into a defoliated white clover cv. Donna sward and grown with various crop inputs. Following the wheat harvest clover was allowed to regrow before being defoliated and the plots redrilled with wheat.

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