Green manure and spatial arrangement in the sustainability improvement of lettuce-beet intercrops

Ítalo N Silva,Hamurábi A Lins,Aurélio P Barros Júnior,Francisco Bezerra Neto,Thaíza M De V Batista,Jailma S S De Lima

doi:10.1590/1807-1929/agriambi.v22n7p451-457

Abstract

ABSTRACT Beet and lettuce are industrial vegetable crops valued for their high mineral, vitamin and fiber contents and for their additional health benefits. These crops are usually grown in intercrops in family production systems in a sustainable manner in semi-arid regions. This work aimed to evaluate the effects of incorporating different levels of hairy woodrose, as a green manure, on the agro-economic sustainability indicators of lettuce-beet intercrops, planted in different spatial arrangements and involving two successive croppings. The experimental design was a randomized complete blocks with treatments arranged in a 4 x 3 factorial scheme, corresponding to four hairy woodrose levels incorporated into the soil (6, 19, 32 and 45 t ha-1, dry basis) and three spatial arrangements between the component crops (2:2, 3:3 and 4:4), with four replications. The optimized agroeconomic performance of lettuce-beet intercropping was achieved with the incorporation of approximately 35.30 t ha-1 hairy woodrose. The lettuce crop contributed significantly to the productivity efficiency and sustainability of the intercropping with beet, compared to the single vegetable crops. The spatial arrangements between component crops did not affect the agroeconomic performance of the lettuce intercropped with beet.

Highlights

The use of spontaneous species of the Caatinga biome as a green manure in intercropping involving tuberoses and leafy vegetables has provided success in these crop production systems (Grangeiro et al, 2011; Oliveira, et al, 2017)
In calculating the productive efficiency index (PEI) of each treatment, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model with constant returns to the scale (Mello et al, 2013) was used, since there was no significant difference between scales
There was no significant difference between the spatial arrangements in the LER, PEI and in the land equivalent ratios of lettuce (LERl) and beet (LERb) (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

The use of spontaneous species of the Caatinga biome as a green manure in intercropping involving tuberoses and leafy vegetables has provided success in these crop production systems (Grangeiro et al, 2011; Oliveira, et al, 2017) One of these species is the hairy woodrose (Merremia aegyptia L.), an herbaceous plant with a climbing habit, annual, succulent, easy to cut and sting, being a genus of Convolvulaceae family. It establishes in environments with sandy, clayey and/or sandyclayey soils, presenting rapid growth, reaching up to 5 m in length (Linhares, 2013). It is as an important alternative for use as green manure in family farms producing vegetables in intercropping systems (Linhares, 2009)

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