Abstract
Declining land productivity associated with diminishing farm size is a significant issue for intensive and sustainable crop production in Ethiopia. An intercropping of cereals such as wheat with grain legumes may provide a farm wide production system that achieves both economic and environmental concerns. Therefore, a field trial was carried out to evaluate the effect of different crop combinations of wheat-haricot bean on the productivity of wheat and haricot bean under two tillage practices at Alem Tena during 2016-2017 cropping seasons. The experiment was conducted by using split-plot design with three replications. The treatments comprised of two tillage practices (conventional and minimum tillage) assigned as the main plot and five wheat-haricot bean intercropping combinations (1:0, 1:1, 2:1, 1:2 and 0:1) assigned as the subplot. The results showed that tillage practices had a significant effect on growth and yield parameters of wheat, but not on growth and yield parameters of haricot bean. Minimum tillage increased biomass and grain yield of wheat over conventional tillage. Intercropping combination had a significant effect on both growth and yield parameters of both crops. The highest yield of wheat (3396 kg/ha) and haricot bean (4257.1 kg/ha) were observed in sole wheat and sole haricot bean, followed by 2:1 and 1:2 wheat-haricot bean combination, respectively. However, competitive indices showed that wheat-haricot bean in any of the combinations found to be more profitable and productive compared to sole wheat and haricot bean. Among intercropping combinations, 1:2 wheat-haricot bean gave the highest LER, ATER, MAI, IER. Therefore, 1:2 wheat-haricot bean intercropping combinations with a minimum tillage may provide a new opportunity in a low-input small grain production system for the study area, one that accomplishes both environmental and economic benefits through higher land productivity, improved grain and biomass productions.
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