Livelihood enhancement and resource use efficiency under lemongrass intercropping with food crops

Abstract

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon flexuosus L.) is an important multi-harvest aromatic grass that grows mainly in tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Wider plant geometry of lemongrass provides a better opportunity for intercropping at the crop commencement stage. Intercropping will restore and maximize resource use efficiency thereby it enhances productivity. A field experiment conducted during 2018–2019 at CSIR-CIMAP, Research Centre, Bengaluru with thirteen treatments: sole crop of lemongrass, pigeon pea, okra, finger millet, field bean, cowpea, soybean and intercropping of these crop species with lemongrass was followed under randomized block design with three replications. The results revealed that cowpea intercropping with lemongrass recorded higher herb yield (30.36 t ha−1) and oil yield (364.32 kg ha−1). Whereas, field bean intercropping performed better in terms of equivalent yield of lemongrass oil. Among different competition indices worked out to know the performance of the intercropping system, the indices to access biological efficiency such as LER (1.33), ATER (1.12), LUE (189.22%), LEC (0.33), SPI (38.27), percent land saved (24.87) recorded highest in lemongrass + okra intercropping system. Values of CR (1.57) and A (0.32) indicate the dominance of pigeon pea over lemongrass. Economic indices RVT (1.28), RNR (1.26), cost-benefit ratio (2.39) and net returns (5173 US $) were found highest in field bean which was closely followed by the okra intercropping system. Thus, intercropping of field bean or okra with lemongrass has the potential to increase the profit of the farmer with greater resource use efficiency.