Abstract
Understanding the advantage of crop water use in mixed crops over sole cropping is vital in developing optimum water management crop production in the tropical wet-and-dry climate. This study investigated water supply potential for the cultivation of kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) – maize (Zea mays L.) intercrop in of South-western Nigeria. The phenological stages of each of the crops formed the basis for the investigation. The experiment comprises of two varieties of kenaf (Tainung 1 and Ifeken400), one variety of maize (DMR-LSR-Y) and two planting season (early and late). Selected moisture indices were measured daily and processed into ten-day (dekad) average for the 2007 and 2008 cropping seasons following FAO. Descriptive statistics was employed for the analysis. Relating the effective water availability to the indices of moisture adequacy for the growth of the crop in sole and intercrop, it was found that the agro-climatic moisture indices were optimum during the moisture sensitive stages particularly for early season planting irrespective of cropping pattern. A comparison of maize and kenaf production in sole or intercrop in the study area showed that early planting promotes the growth, development and yield irrespective of planting season. Mono-cropping maize and kenaf performed better than intercropping. However, water supply in rain-fed agriculture was confirmed to be efficient for maize/ kenaf intercrop in South-western Nigeria.
Highlights
Despite the tremendous improvements in technology and crop yield potential due to the attention recently given to the concept of agricultural sustainability, food production remains highly dependent on climate
It was observed that earlier planting so that the entire phenological stages coincided with period of AWA led to relatively longer period of complete plot establishment and the vegetative growth and higher final yield is expected whereas, late planting led to a situation whereby the AWA was not able to satisfy the moisture requirement of crops at the critical moisture requirement period of silking and fruiting before the cessation of rains
The study revealed that partitioning of the growing season into different phenological stages for investigating crop will allow the determination of the extent to which the water availability will satisfy water requirement of crops during the different phenological stages irrespective of cropping pattern
Summary
Despite the tremendous improvements in technology and crop yield potential due to the attention recently given to the concept of agricultural sustainability, food production remains highly dependent on climate. Of all the climatic parameters involved in crop production, water supply is generally the most critical agro-meteorological factor limiting crop production where irrigation is not available [1,2], in Africa where agricultural activities is largely rain fed. One major persistent problem for agriculture is that of water supply which is manifested by the seasonal and variability of rainfall. By combining crops that have different growth pattern, the available land, soil, radiation, heat, water and nutrient can be better utilized in time and space as compared to sole cropping [5,6,7]. Many studies have shown that higher efficiencies can be achieved with intercropping in the utilization of radiation [8], nutrients [9], land [10,11] and water [12]. For sustainable agricultural production, researchers all over the world and in Nigeria in particular have not relented on their efforts at investigating both the positive and negative effects of intercropping
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