Abstract
ABSTRACT: Studies showed that intercropping garlic reduced pests in strawberry field crops. However, influence of intercropping on yield was not tested. The objective of the study was to evaluate the strawberry pseudofruit and garlic bulb productions in monocropping and intercropping systems. Assessments of the yields and calculation of the land equivalent ratio, competition ratio and gross income were performed. The experiments were conducted in three areas (two open field and one greenhouse) in Londrina municipality. Treatments in the field experiments were garlic or strawberry in monocrops (controls), strawberry (S) + one garlic row (GR), S + 2GR or S + 3GR per plot. In the greenhouse experiment, plants were grown in pots with following treatments: garlic or strawberry in monocrops, 2S + 2 garlic plants per plot (GPP), 2S + 4GPP or 2S + 5GPP. Similar yields (garlic bulbs and strawberry pseudofruits) were observed among the treatments. Intercropping garlic among strawberry plants increased the land equivalent ratio. The intercrop land equivalent ratio index ranged from 1.34 to 2.55. An increasing in gross income were observed when increasing garlic plant densities in intercropping with strawberry. Results showed that intercropping garlic with strawberry increases land equivalent ratio and gross income. Production of strawberry pseudofruits and garlic bulbs were not influenced by intercropping systems compared to monocropping.
Highlights
Monocrops predominate in farming practices due to the simplicity of their management to achieve agricultural yields
In the area II, the experiment conducted in a greenhouse located at Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL) (23°19’44.5”S, 51°12’17.3”W; 585 m.) with the plants grown in plastic pots (7 L, top diameter: 27 cm, bottom diameter: 19 cm and pot height: 22 cm) filled with soil
The yield of the pseudofruits per plant ranged from 376.96 g (S+2GR) to 454.48 g (S+3GR) for area I, 211.46 (S+2GPP) to 256.31 g for area II, and 121.27 (S + 3GR) to 145.64 g (S + 2GR) for area III (Table 1)
Summary
Monocrops predominate in farming practices due to the simplicity of their management to achieve agricultural yields. If intelligently designed, plant diversification schemes may reduce the number of crop pests and increase the number of their natural predators, as shown by a metaanalysis including 552 experiments (LETOURNEAU et al, 2011, GREENOP et al, 2018) These cropping systems are mostly suitable for small farmers whose main income source is the cultivation of vegetables. The use of intercropping with vegetable species, such as aromatic or spicy plants, has high potential to improve land equivalent ratio (ANJUM et al, 2015; ISLAM et al, 2016; SCHMITT et al, 2016) These cropping systems collaborated to save production resources such as water and fertilizer, and manpower usage becomes more efficient, which contributed to the development of agroecosystem sustainability. The mustard seed production was diminished, the income generated by the intercropped plants was very high (three times more than the monocrops) (NOMAN et al, 2013)
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