Kaiwen Liang

Agri-Products Application Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resources, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Plant Gene and Trait, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 4   
Received: 03 Jul., 2025    Accepted: 10 Aug., 2025    Published: 19 Aug., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This study collates relevant research on the impact of light regulation on the growth of understory crops in mulberry three-dimensional planting systems. Starting from aspects such as the structural design of mulberry planting and the changing characteristics of light distribution, it examines how understory crops adapt to different light conditions and summarizes some key factors affecting the shade tolerance of crops. Several simple and effective methods to improve the lighting environment under the forest are introduced, such as appropriate pruning of mulberry trees, adjusting the planting orientation, and laying reflective films. The example of "intercropping mulberry trees and soybeans" is also used to illustrate that by improving the lighting conditions, not only can the yield of soybeans be increased, but also their quality can be enhanced. This study aims to provide some theoretical and practical operation suggestions for the efficient planting of lower layer crops in the three-dimensional mulberry planting system.

Mulberry-based vertical planting; Understory crops; Light environment regulation; Shade response; Resource use efficiency