Abstract
A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of intercropping and planting densities on the growth and yield of maize (Zea mays) and soybeans (Glycine max). A 1 ha plot located at the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IRAD), Ekona, South West Region of Cameroon was used. There were two blocks: block 1 which was fertilized with 60 kg/ha NPK (20:10:10) and top dressed with urea at 50 kg N and block 2 which was unfertilized. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with three replications and a total of 15 treatments. Treatments were intercropped combinations of maize (53,320, 40,000 and 26,666 plants/ha) and soybeans (200,000, 160,000 and 100,000 plants/ha) and six sole-cropped treatments. Intercropping affected grain yields for both soybeans and maize; however, the effect on maize was not significant (P ≥ 0.05). Maize at 53,320 plants/ha intercropped with soybeans at 200,000 plants/ha produced the maximum mean number of pods (34.67), pod weight (13.09 g), number of grains (69.6) and grain weight (8.66 g) per pod. The productivity of the intercropping system indicated yield advantage of 25 to 80% in the unfertilized block and 33 to 96% in the fertilized block as depicted by the land equivalent ratio of 1.25 to 1.8 and 1.33 to 1.96, respectively. All the intercropped combinations had relative value total above unity (1.32 and 1.29) in both unfertilized and fertilized blocks, respectively, meaning a high profitability of this system as compared to monocropping. Maize at a population density of 53,320 plants/ha intercropped with soybean at a plant density of 200,000 plants/ha showed the highest profitability and overall, was the best intercropping combination in this study. Key words: Intercropping, soybean, maize performance, yield.
Highlights
Food scarcity and security is one of the most important problems confronting the world today
The results of this study agreed with the findings of other researchers (Undie et al, 2012; Muoneke et al, 2007; Mudita et al, 2008), which showed that maize grain yield was not significantly affected by intercropping and planting densities
Other researchers reported that the grain yield of maize in maize/soybeans mixture was reduced as compared to its sole crop yields (Ennin et al, 2002; Silwana and Lucas, 2002; Mashingaidze, 2004)
Summary
Food scarcity and security is one of the most important problems confronting the world today. Farmers practice different cropping systems to increase productivity and sustainability in Africa. Intercropping, which is one of these systems is the growth of two or more crop species simultaneously in the same field during a growing season (Carruthers et al, 2000; Onuh et al, 2011). It is seen as a method of sustainable agriculture, where two or more crops are grown simultaneously during the same season, on the same area and are believed to utilize common limiting resources better than the species grown separately (Ghosh et al, 2006). In the study off Javanmard et al (2009), the dry matter yield for maize in intercrop with legumes ranged from 1044 to 1514 g/m2, which were higher than 1002 g/m2 obtained for maize as a sole crop
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