Yield and economic attributes of cereal and legume as affected by the sole and mixed cropping system in rainfed conditions

Abstract

A major worldwide challenge of the modern era is to meet the food demand of the increasing population. These issues can be resolved by introducing a system that can maximize overall productivity and net economic returns, with efficient utilization of limited available resources and causing minimal disturbance to the natural ecosystem. The use of cereal-legume intercropping system tends to meet these challenges by enhancing grain production with better economic gains. Keeping in view its significance, a field trial was conducted during the summer of 2016 to determine the feasibility of sorghum-mungbean cropping system compared with the mono-cropping system. The cropping patterns followed as sole mungbean, sole sorghum, mungbean-sorghum. The yield and its attributes of sole and intercrops were statistically significant (P<0.05). The sole cropping pattern was beneficial and gave maximum results for yield attributes of both crops due to less competition between plants in comparison with the intercropping system. Whereas, the intercropping system had more total per unit area production compared to the sole cropping system. The partial LER of sorghum (0.70) and mungbean (0.76) depicted a total yield advantage of 70-76% in this system. The total value of intercropping advantage (IA) was maximum positive (+38.5), which indicated that this system was economically more feasible than the sole cropping system.