Abstract
Weed incidence and biomass in tree crop plantations are mainly influenced by environmental, farm management practices and cropping systems. Manipulation of intercropping systems to improve weed management in coffee intercropped with oil palm requires a better understanding of spatial and temporal dynamics of weeds. To evaluate the effect of weed incidence and biomass in coffee intercropped with oil palm in avenue and hollow square arrangement, a study was carried out in Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) in two locations. The locations are Idi-Ayunre (7°25'N, 3°24'E) (an alfisol) and Uhonmora (6°5'N, 5°50'E) (ultisol) in rainforest and derived savannah parts of Nigeria respectively. The experiment had three treatments comprising coffee sole (control), coffee with oil palm (Hollow square) arrangement and coffee with oil palm (Avenue) planting. Coffee was planted 3.0 m apart while oil palm was planted 9 m apart. Equal size of land area was used for coffee in each treatment. The experimental design was Randomized Complete Block (RCBD) with three replicates. Data on vegetative growth of coffee, weed incidence and biomass were taken at three-monthly intervals. The result showed that coffee/oil palm (Hollow Square) had the least weed incidence and biomass closely followed by coffee/oil palm (Avenue) planting. The control had the highest weed biomass which was significantly different from Hollow square and Avenue planting at P ≤ 0.05. The morphological parameters on coffee followed the same pattern but Hollow square arrangement was significantly higher than Avenue and control at P ≤ 0.05.
Highlights
Weed flora has changed over the past century, with either increasing or decreasing species abundance depending on the management [1] [2] [3]
To evaluate the effect of weed incidence and biomass in coffee intercropped with oil palm in avenue and hollow square arrangement, a study was carried out in Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) in two locations
The result showed that coffee/oil palm (Hollow Square) had the least weed incidence and biomass closely followed by coffee/oil palm (Avenue) planting
Summary
Weed flora has changed over the past century, with either increasing or decreasing species abundance depending on the management [1] [2] [3]. Belde et al [7] found that the composition of weed seed in the soil seed bank hardly changed six years after converting a farm from conventional to organic systems. Weed causes reduction in crop yield and extra cost in the total labour use in crop production. Akobundu [12] stated that weed causes 65% reduction in yield of root and tuber crops and takes 25% of total labour use in production. Weed still appears to be the most deleterious constraint causing berry yield reduction. It is one of the commonest agronomic problems in coffee after planting on the field [14]
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