Abstract
Cereal-legume intercropping plays a vital role in the subsistence food production system that prevails in the arid regions. It not only provides profitable crop productivity for agricultural communities but also plays an important role in improving soil fertility. Therefore, the present research was conducted to assess the effect of the organic and mineral fertilizers on the forage yield and nutritional value in barley-pea intercropping system. The results revealed that the quality of forage grass is significantly influenced by both organic and inorganic fertilizer. Thus, organic fertilizer application has significantly influenced the dry matter (DM), crude ash (CA), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), and acid detergent fiber (ADF). Among the treatments, organic fertilizer added at rate of 35 m−3 ha−1 produced the maximum fresh and dry matter in barley and peas. In addition, the same level of organic fertilizer also improved silage composition by significantly increasing the protein and fiber content and showed highest the values. Based on overall results, it is concluded that organic fertilizer treatment (35 m−3 ha−1) has the potential as an effective strategy to improve the productivity and nutritional quality of the barley-pea intercropping system in arid areas. The results revealed that organic fertilizer can be utilized in sustainable agricultural as a source of nutrients for numerous various crops under arid conditions.
Highlights
IntroductionBy the year 2050, it is a great challenge in agriculture to ensure food security for the burgeoning world population by mitigating adverse environmental conditions
Legumes are rich in protein content, whereas cereals have superior carbohydrate contents and advantages for cereals from the nitrogen fixed by legumes when they are grown in mixtures
The forage quality of barley/pea mixed hay gradually improved with the increase in the amount of organic fertilizer, while the chemical fertilizer treatment remained the best values of fresh weight (FW) and dry matter (DM), but it was not as good as organic fertilizer afterward
Summary
By the year 2050, it is a great challenge in agriculture to ensure food security for the burgeoning world population by mitigating adverse environmental conditions. It is necessary to adopt sustainable production practices for increasing agricultural productivity in response to changing climate, resources rarefaction, and losses of fertile lands. For sustainable agro ecological development, crop diversity and cropping systems must be taken into consideration. It has been recognized that intercropping systems play an important role to enhance crop yield and quality by exploiting land, light, water, and soil nutrients efficiently [1]. Growing at least two crop species in close proximity simultaneously, leading to enhanced interspecific interactions and crop diversity, is known as intercropping [2]. The overall yield of intercropping is higher over monocropping systems [3]. It can be explained by two major ecological principles leading to improved resource use: niche complementarity and interspecific facilitation in intercropping systems.
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