Abstract
Pineapple is commonly planted in monoculture systems. It is a long-cycle crop that takes time to monetize, which hinders its cropping by small farmers. The objective of this work was to evaluate the production and quality of pineapple with short-cycle crops, at the beginning of the growing period, as an alternative for family farming in the state of Tocantins. The experimental design was randomized complete block with three treatments and four replications. The pineapple was intercropped with rice and cowpea. The treatments consisted of T1: pineapple + rice; T2: pineapple + cowpea and T3: pineapple in monoculture. The evaluated variables of the pineapple fruit were pH, soluble solids, titratable acidity, yield, fruit mass, fruit length with crown, fruit length without crown and fruit circumference. For the rice and cowpea, the yield and the Area Equivalence Index (AEI) were determined. The cropping system did not influence the pineapple fruits quality. The pineapple yielded less. Cowpea yielded more when intercropped with pineapple. The AEI of the pineapple + rice intercropping was 2.07, being feasible for increasing the use of the area by 100%. The AEI of the pineapple + cowpea intercropping was 2.48, being feasible as it increased the use of the area by 148%. The results obtained showed that it is possible to intercrop pineapple with rice or cowpea at the beginning of pineapple cultivation, and it can be a viable alternative for family farming.
Highlights
The pineapple is commonly grown in a monoculture system, but is used by small farms, in family farming system
The values found are within the established standards for the state of Tocantins according to Conceição et al (2004), except for the titratable acidity that presented slight lower values
There was a significant difference between the cultivation systems adopted for pineapple for all evaluated variables, except crownless fruit length (CFL) (Table 2). These results demonstrate that the pineapple responded to cropping systems for fruit weight (FW), fruit length with crown (FLC), fruit circumference (Circ) and yield
Summary
The pineapple is commonly grown in a monoculture system, but is used by small farms, in family farming system As it is a long-cycle crop, the economic return occurs in the long term, which ends up hampering the cultivation by small farmers who make limited use of mechanization on their properties and require complementary incomes during the crop implantation phase. Intercropping increases income and improves soil properties These systems have sought to increase the production and yield of the cultivated products, and to adopt production systems that better adapt to the ecological and socioeconomic conditions of certain regions (Cordeiro et al, 2009; Albuquerque et al, 2012; Maciel et al, 2013). According to Cunha (2004), the second crop must have good acceptance in the regional commerce and allow the good development of the pineapple
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