Productive and agro-economic benefits in beet-lettuce intercropping under organic manuring and population densities

Natan Medeiros Guerra,Vitor Abel Da Silva Lino,Jolinda Mércia De Sá,Renato Leandro Costa Nunes,Jailma Suerda Silva De Lima,Francisco Bezerra Neto,Vania Christina Nascimento Porto,Roberto Cleiton Fernandes De Queiroga,Elizangela Cabral Dos Santos

doi:10.33448/rsd-v10i4.13883

Abstract

The use of a cropping system that provides producers with better land use, higher productivity per unit area, greater diversification in production, and consequently agro-economic advantages, has been the choice of vegetables producers. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate the productive and agro-economic benefits of beet-lettuce intercropping under different equitable amounts of Merremia aegyptia and Calotropis procera biomass (20, 35, 50 and 65 t ha-1 on a dry basis) in different lettuce population densities (150, 200, 250, and 300 thousand plants ha-1), in two cropping years in semi-arid environment. In the cultures and in the intercropping, the production and its components and the agro-economic indexes were evaluated. The maximum production of beet commercial roots in intercropping with lettuce was obtained with a productivity of 33.77 t ha-1 in the amount of 65 t ha-1 of M. aegyptia and C. procera biomass incorporated into the soil and in the lettuce population density of 300 thousand plants per hectare, while the maximum lettuce leaf production was achieved with a productivity of 24.40 t ha-1 in the same combination of green manure amounts and lettuce population densities. The greatest agro-economic advantages of the beet intercropping with lettuce were achieved with a system productivity index (SPI) of 32.97 t ha-1, land equivalent coefficient (LEC) of 0.87 and a monetary equivalence ratio (MER) of 1.55, respectively, in the combination of 65 t ha-1 of M. aegyptia and C. procera biomass with a lettuce population density of 300 thousand plants per hectare.

Highlights

Beet and lettuce represent a group of horticultural crops of economic, social and nutritional importance in the production systems of the semi-arid region of Northeast Brazil, where their crops are growing
3.1 lettuce crop No significant interaction was observed between the factors equitable amounts of green manures biomass, population densities of lettuce and cropping years in the agronomic variables: plant height and diameter, number of leaves per plant, productivity and dry mass of lettuce shoots intercropped with beet (Table 4)
The greatest agro-economic advantages of the beet intercropping with lettuce were achieved with a system productivity index (SPI) of 32.97 t ha-1, land equivalent coefficient (LEC) of 0.87 and a monetary equivalence ratio (MER) of 1.55, respectively, in the combination of 65 t ha-1 of M. aegyptia and C. procera biomass with a lettuce population density of 300 thousand plants per hectare

Summary

Introduction

Beet and lettuce represent a group of horticultural crops of economic, social and nutritional importance in the production systems of the semi-arid region of Northeast Brazil, where their crops are growing. Beet is rich in sugars, high in iron, both in roots and leaves, a good source of folate and vitamin C and its leaves are rich in potassium, calcium, iron and beta-carotene, while lettuce, a herbaceous plant rich in nutrients and chlorophyll, has the function of alkalinizing and detoxifying the body, mainly the liver It is an important source of vitamins (A, C and niacin) and mineral salts (of sulfur, phosphorus, iron, calcium and silicon). One of the forms of cultivation that increases the production of these vegetables per unit area is through the intercropping of crops, that is, cultivating two or more crops simultaneously in the same area of land (Almeida et al, 2015; Morais et al, 2018; Nascimento et al, 2018; Sousa et al, 2018) These crops are not necessarily sown at exactly the same time, and their harvest seasons may be completely different, but they are generally "simultaneous" for a significant part of their growing periods. The intercropping can support the increase in aggregate production per unit of input, guarantee against crop failure and market fluctuations, meet food preferences and/or cultural demands, protect and improve soil quality and increase producer income (Rusinamhodzi et al, 2012)

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