Influence of Small Cereal Intercropping and Additive Series of Seed Proportion on the Yield and Yield Component of Lupine (Lupinus Spp.) in North Western Ethiopia

Abstract

Small cereals as a main crop and lupine as a minor crop are food crops often traditionally grown in association in North Western Ethiopia. The experiment was conducted on intercropping of lupine (Lupinus albus L.) with wheat (Triticum aestivum), barley (Hordeum vulgar) and finger millet (Eleusine coracana) in 2009 at Adet Agricultural research station. The treatments were sole wheat at a seed rate of 175 kg/ ha, sole barley at a seed rate of 125 kg/ ha, sole finger millet at a seed rate of 30 kg/ ha, sole lupine at a seed rate of 90 kg/ ha, and an additive series of 25, 50 and 75 % of the sole lupine seed rate combined with the full cereal seed rate to determine the effect of small cereal intercropping in additive series on the yield and yield component of lupine. The experimental design was a completely randomized block with nine intercropping and four sole cropping systems in three replications. Lupine was planted in rows after establishment of main crops. SAS software’s were used to compute the analysis of variance. Maximum lupine seed proportion was superior to the lowest when intercropped with wheat and finger millet. The lowest population density resulted in reduced agronomic attributes of lupine. Intercropping higher proportion of lupine with wheat and finger millet did help much in increasing grain yield and biomass yield of lupine without affecting cereal crop yield. However, nearly complete dominance of barley over lupine at all seeding ratios leads to absolute reduction in grain yield. The lupine-finger millet mixture at the 50:100 and 75:100 seeding ratio and lupine-wheat mixture at the 75:100 seeding ratio had a higher yield advantage of intercropping for exploiting the resources of the environment compared with the other intercropping systems.