Abstract
The organic fruit crop should incorporate the principles of sustainable agriculture, with a guarantee of productivity coupled with ecological diversity, using techniques of policultive with regional species. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of the green manure crops [Canavalia ensiformis (jack beans), Crotalaria spectabilis (sunn hemp), Pueraria phaseoloides (tropical kudzu), Arachis pintoi (peanut forage) and spontaneous plants] and distance between espaliers on the yields of Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa (passion fruit), Ananas comosus (pineapple), Zea mays (maize), Manihot esculenta (cassava) and biomass in organic polyculture in the state of Acre, Brazil. The randomized block design experiment comprised plots encompassing the space between the rows of passion fruits (espaliers located 3 m or 4 m apart), and subplots that contained the green manure crops. Green biomass yield by jack beans, sunn hemp and tropical kudzu was greater than that provided by peanut forage and spontaneous plants. The polyculture of passion fruit, pineapple, maize and cassava presented a high overall yield (44462 kg ha-1). The land-use efficiency of the polyculture system was between 2.45 (with sunn hemp) and 2.77 (with tropical kudzu) times greater than that achieved by individual monocultures. The yields of passion fruit (with tropical kudzu as cover crop) and pineapple (with spontaneous plants as green manure) were enhanced by some 72 and 34%, respectively, when cultivated in plots comprising 3 m-spaced espaliers in comparison with plots containing 4 m-spaced espaliers.
Highlights
The level of agricultural activity in the state of Acre remains relatively low in comparison with other regions of the Brazilian Amazon basin
Passiflora edulis would be an ideal candidate for inclusion in such a polyculture system since production in Acre is currently confined to just 17 dos 22 municipalities (IBGE, 2014), and cultivation is normally performed with minimal agricultural inputs resulting in an annual production of 403 tons with productivities of 7.6 tons ha-1 in conventional culture and 5.03 tons ha-1 in organic systems (Araújo-Neto et al, 2009)
We have proposed an unconventional farming method comprising an organic polyculture of passion fruit, pineapple, maize and cassava with green manure, and we have evaluated the effects of different green manure crops and espalier spacings on crop yields
Summary
The level of agricultural activity in the state of Acre remains relatively low in comparison with other regions of the Brazilian Amazon basin. In this context, improving crop cultivation techniques through the use of polyculture systems is considered an excellent option for increasing productivity per unit area, reducing the environmental impact caused by agriculture (Cecílio-Filho et al, 2011; Pypers et al, 2011; BezerraNeto et al, 2012) and augmenting the profitability of the farm (Bezerra-Neto et al, 2012). One method of increasing the abundance of farm products and improving the ecological diversity of the area would be to employ a policulture technique comprising common crops, such as maize, pineapple and cassava, together with a culture that is little exploited in the region. The average production costs of organically grown passion fruit vary between R$0.64 and R$1.38 kg-1, there is a significant requirement to increase the efficiency of yield and to reduce unit costs in order to improve profitability (Araújo-Neto et al, 2008)
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