Abstract
An experiment was conducted in University of London, Kent, UK during the year 2003. The aim of experiment was to investigate the effects of planting pattern on performance of wheat and bean intercrops. A complete randomized block design with four replications was employed to compare the treatments. Treatments included wheat sole crop (W), Bean sole crop (B), within row intercropping (M1), row intercropping (M2) and mix cropping (M3). The density of intercropping was according to replacement design (one wheat replaced by three bean plants). The results showed that total dry matter achieved by intercrops was significantly higher than those achieved by either wheat or bean sole crop. Regarding to weed control, intercrops were more effective than sole crops, especially bean sole crop. Crops performance in terms dry weight, height and percentage of leaf, stem pod and ear was affected by cropping systems depending on crop species, where wheat showed more changes compared to bean . Grain yield, harvest index and thousand grain weights of wheat were decreased in intercropping while bean had reduction only in grain yield.
Highlights
Intercropping, the simultaneous growing of two or more crop species on the same piece of land (Ofori and Stern, 1987) is an important practice for the development of sustainable food production systems, in cropping system with limited external inputs (Agegnehu et al, 2006)
Weed dry weight showed no significant differences between different intercrop planting patterns (M1, M2 and M3)
M1=alternate-row intercrop; M2=within-row intercrop; M3=mixed intercrop. These results show that dry matter for all intercrop treatments were greater than those of sole crops (Tab. 3)
Summary
Intercropping, the simultaneous growing of two or more crop species on the same piece of land (Ofori and Stern, 1987) is an important practice for the development of sustainable food production systems, in cropping system with limited external inputs (Agegnehu et al, 2006) This may be due to some of the potential benefits for intercropping systems such as high productivity and profitability (Yildirim and Guvence, 2005), improvement of soil fertility through the addition of N by fixation and extraction from the component legume (HauggaardNielsen et al, 2001), reducing damage caused by pests, diseases and weeds (Banik et al, 2006; Sekamatte et al, 2003), improvement of forage quality (Agegnehu et al, 2006) and efficient use of environmental resources (Knudsen et al, 2004; Eskandari and Ghanbari, 2010) through the complementary effects of two or more crops grown simultaneously on the same area of land. This experiment was designed to quantify the effects of planting pattern on benefits of intercropping in terms of (i) grain yield, (ii) dry matter production and (iii) weed biomass
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