Effect of intercropping patterns on forage yield and land use efficiency of some summer fodder crops

Abstract EN

Two field experiments were carried out during two successive summer seasons of 2014 and 2015 at Kafr Al-Hamam Agricultural Research Station, Agric.

Research Center (ARC) to study the effect of intercropping of six summer fodder crops i.e.

pure stand of sudan grass (100%), pearl millet (100%), teosinte (100%), cowpea (100%), guar (100%) and lima bean (100%), respectively, planting each of sudan grass (50%) + cowpea (50%), sudan grass (50%)+ guar (50%), sudan grass (50%) + lima bean (50%), pearl millet (50%)+ cowpea (50%), pearl millet (50%) + guar (50%), pearl millet (50%) + lima bean (50%), teosinte (50%)+ cowpea (50%), teosinte (50%) + guar(50%) and teosinte (50%) + lima bean (50%) in row alternatives on the same ridge, respectively on forage and protein yields and land use efficiency.

The important results could be summarized as follows: Pure stand of pearl millet gave higher total fresh and dry forage yields than either sudan grass or teosinte, whereas cowpea pure stand gave higher total fresh and dry forage yields compared with sole planting of either guar or lima bean.

Results also confirmed the superiority of pearl millet + cowpea intercropping in total fresh and dry forage yields (32.51 and 6.50 ton/fad.), respectively over pure legumes and all other intercropping patterns.

The intercropping of pearl millet + cowpea gave the highest total crude protein yield (766.56 kg/fad.) than all other intercropping patterns.

The contribution percentage of grasses in dry yield for the three cuts of any intercropping system were high, whereas that of legumes were low than the expected.

Cowpea was the highest competitive associate crop in the three cuts compared to either guar or lima bean.

Planting of grasses intercropped with legumes caused increase in total land equivalent ratio (LER) for the total three cuts of both crops which was greater than one in all intercropping patterns under study as dry matter basis.

Also, land equivalent coefficient (LEC) exhibited similar trend.

The values of competition ratio (CR) for the total three cuts of grasses were greater than intercropped legumes indicating the dominance of grasses and the legumes as the dominated component under different intercropping patterns.