Intercropping of Faba Bean and Bread Wheat at Kulumsa, South-Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

The increasing price of inputs increased cost of production of wheat in Arsi zone which leads to minimum net income. This forced few farmers to use crop rotation in the area. They do this to minimize the amount of fertilizer required and break pest cycle (disease, weed and insect) for cereal especially wheat. However most farmers do not use this rotation as required because of land shortage. They do not want to loss wheat every year. Because of this, alternative cropping system is needed to solve this problem. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the compatibility of faba bean/wheat inter cropping, to select suitable variety of faba bean under different spatial patterns of intercropping, and to assess the economic feasibility of intercropping faba bean with bread wheat in the area. A field experiment was conducted in 2019 main cropping season at Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center, Southeastern Ethiopia to select suitable varieties of faba bean in intercropping and to assess the economic profitability of intercropping faba bean with bread wheat in the area. The treatments were three faba bean varieties (Ashebeka, Hachalu and Tumsa) intercropped with bread wheat (variety Hulluka) in three different planting ratios (1W:1FB, 1W:2FB, 2W:1FB) and sole planting of the three faba bean varieties and wheat. Randomized complete block design with three replications was used. Planting ratio of 1W:2FB, sole cropped faba bean and planting ratio of 1W:1FB with variety Hachalu gave highest grain yield (3426.3 kgha^-1), above ground biomass (11257.3 kgha^-1) and harvest index of faba bean (36%), respectively. Planting ratio of 2W:1FB gave the highest wheat yield (1896.6 kgha^-1). The highest (8057.13 kgha^-1) above ground biomass yield of wheat was recorded at 2W:1FB. Highest gross monetary value of 100,591ETB/ha was obtained with planting ratio of 1W:2FB with variety Tumsa. Sole wheat gave the lowest gross monetary value of 59,752 ETB/ha. This could be due to high price and better competition ability of faba bean with good rainfall distribution in the growing season.