Abstract
Wheat and chickpea are most important crops in dryland farming areas of Iran. Weeds have major impact on chickpea grain yield. This experiment was carrie d out to increase land use efficiency and weed suppression through intercropping in dryland agricu ltural research station-Sararood, Kermanshah, Iran during 2008-10. The experimental design layout was factorial split plot based on randomized complete block design with three replications. The main plot s contained factorial plots of N fertilization with 3 levels (N1: no fertilization, N2: 60 kg.ha -1 urea for wheat and 20 kg.ha -1 for chickpea and N3: Nitragin as a biofertilizer + 30 kg.ha -1 urea for wheat and chickpea no urea); and weed con ditions with 2 levels (weed infested and weed free). The third factor as sub-pl ots arranged in main plots was cropping patterns wi th 10 levels (1: wheat Sole Crop (wh.SC), 2: chickpea Sol e Crop (ch.SC), 3: wh./ch. Mixed Intercropping (wh./ch.MIC) in 1:1 ratio, 4: wh./ch. MIC in 2:1 ra tio, Row Intercropping (RIC) 1row wh.:1row ch., 6: Strip Intercropping (SIC) 5wh.1ch.5wh.2ch, 7: SIC 7wh.:2ch., 8: SIC 2wh.:7ch., 9: SIC 9wh.:4ch. and 10: SIC 4wh.:9ch.). Weed and nitrogen factors didn’t have s ignificant effect on wheat yield and patterns numbe r 5, 8 and 10 produced highest wheat grain yield respect ively. Chickpea yield was significantly reduced by wheat when intercropped, but high Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) derived. Effect of weeds on chickpea Grain Yield (GY) was significant and GY in weed infested was nearly half of GY in weed free condition. LER in weed infested condition in both years was hi gher than weed free condition. Weed dry matter in f ive intercropping patterns clearly decreased as compare to chickpea sole crop. It is concluded that interc ropping can be used as a method to decrease the inputs of w heat and chickpea crops, especially for nitrogen fertilizing and weed control.
Highlights
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) the second important cereal in the world and chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), the third most important pulse crop play a vital role in global agricultural economy (FAO, 2012)
Means comparison of Weeds Dry Matter (WDM) for cropping patterns showed that chickpea SC (P2) had highest WDM and in intercropping patterns (IC, included P3P10) WDM decreased significantly as compare with chickpea SC, but Weed Density (WD) in cropping patterns had no significance difference (Fig. 3)
WDM of patterns differed across years, as in patterns with levels (P1) in second year WDM was less than first year and in other hand in P2
Summary
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) the second important cereal in the world and chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), the third most important pulse crop play a vital role in global agricultural economy (FAO, 2012). Wheat is produced in the world for both food and feed (Pingali, 1999). When growing an intercrop consisting of a grain legume and a cereal at variable soil N levels, the grain legume has a higher interspecific competitive ability in areas with lower soil N levels and vice versa for the cereal component. Such self-regulation will result in an Science Publications
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