Viability of polycultures of arugula-carrot-coriander fertilized with hairy woodrose under different population densities

Lúcio J De Oliveira,Ítalo N Silva,Joserlan N Moreira,Jailma S S De Lima,Francisco Bezerra Neto,Eliane Q De Oliveira

doi:10.1590/1807-1929/agriambi.v21n9p611-617

Abstract

ABSTRACT Polycultures from broadleaves with tuberoses are being used in vegetable crop production systems in the semiarid region of Potiguar. The challenge is to determine whether these systems are productively viable when fertilized with organic matter produced by spontaneous species of the Caatinga biome. The objective of this study was to evaluate the agro-economic performance of arugula (A), carrot (C), and coriander (Co) polycultures fertilized with hairy woodrose biomass incorporated into the soil under different population densities among the component crops. The experimental design was a randomized complete block with four replications, with the treatments arranged in a 4 × 4 factorial scheme, from the combination of four amounts of hairy woodrose biomass incorporated into the soil (7.5, 15.0, 22.5, and 30.0 t ha-1 on a dry matter basis), with four population densities (20A-50C-20Co%, 30A-50C-30Co%, 40A-50C-40Co%, and 50A-50C-50Co% of the recommended population in the single crop). The efficiency of polycultures was evaluated through indexes and agro-economic indicators. The most productive agro-economic performance was obtained with a biomass of 18.21 t ha-1 of hairy woodrose incorporated in the soil and a population density of 50A-50C-50Co%.

Highlights

Polyculture is a practice that is characterized by diversification, whereby different species of plants can be exploited at the same time and in the same space, showing more stability in their production than monoculture systems and presenting more effective mechanisms for providing and fixing of nutrients (Bezerra Neto et al, 2012).In polyculture, in addition to the appropriate choice of combinations of species or cultivars, or of their establishment times, there are two important factors to be evaluated: population densities and adequate amounts of fertilizers to be applied to the soil (Lima et al, 2013)
There was no significant interaction between the amounts of hairy woodrose incorporated into the soil and the population densities of the component crops in the land equivalent ratio, productive efficiency index, and score of the canonical variable (Figure 2 and Table 1)
Increases in the land equivalent ratio (LER), productive efficiency index (PEI) and score of the canonical variable (Z) were observed with increasing amounts of hairy woodrose added until maximum values of 1.61, 89.16, and 7.54 were obtained for hairy woodrose additions of 22.15, 19.43, and 22.18 t ha-1, after which these parameters decreased with further increases in the incorporation of green manure in the ground

Summary

Introduction

Polyculture is a practice that is characterized by diversification, whereby different species of plants can be exploited at the same time and in the same space, showing more stability in their production than monoculture systems and presenting more effective mechanisms for providing and fixing of nutrients (Bezerra Neto et al, 2012).In polyculture, in addition to the appropriate choice of combinations of species or cultivars, or of their establishment times, there are two important factors to be evaluated: population densities and adequate amounts of fertilizers to be applied to the soil (Lima et al, 2013). Polyculture is a practice that is characterized by diversification, whereby different species of plants can be exploited at the same time and in the same space, showing more stability in their production than monoculture systems and presenting more effective mechanisms for providing and fixing of nutrients (Bezerra Neto et al, 2012). Research regarding green manure in intercropping with vegetable crops has been successfully carried out in northeastern Brazil. Some authors, using hairy woodrose in carrot (Oliveira et al, 2011), beet (Silva et al, 2011), and beet and radish (Batista et al, 2013, 2016) obtained satisfactory yields under the conditions prevalent in Mossoró, RN, indicating that using green manure with hairy woodrose may be a promising practice for those using vegetable crops in successive cropping systems

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Results