The southern part of Mozambique is vulnerable to drought affecting the country's food production requiring more drought-tolerant crops. Four local cowpea landraces, Massava nhassenje, Timbawene moteado, Namarua and Tete-2, which are currently widely used by local Mozambican farmers, were evaluated for their drought tolerance with the aim to identify the most drought-tolerant landrace and also a phenotypic marker easily applicable for drought tolerance selection under local Mozambican conditions. Above-and below-ground plant characteristics, including biomass, protein content, proteolytic activity, symbiotic nitrogen fixation and nodule number, were measured in a greenhouse under well-watered and drought conditions using vermiculite as plant growth medium. Key finding was that variability exists among the landraces for growth under drought with Timbawene moteado displaying significantly higher leaf dry biomass, leaf and nodule protein content and symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF) and lowest increase in proteolytic activity compared to all other landraces. Timbawene moteado 2 might be suitable for inclusion into a future cowpea breeding program in Mozambique and might also be tested in other areas in Mozambique experiencing drought stress. Further, leaf dry biomass might be selected as a simple and informative marker for future screening of the Mozambican cowpea germplasm for drought tolerance.
Intercropping is a common practice in Africa, but the advantage compared to sole cropping depends on the crop plants and local agro-ecological conditions. The potential of intercropping maize (Zea mays) or sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) with watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) was tested in two on-farm trials in southern Mozambique under semi-arid conditions in an area with low and unpredictable rainfall. In the first experiment, plant density, yield and monetary value of sole and intercropping plots of maize with watermelon were determined in 17 farmers' fields in an area where all crops developed to maturity and harvest. There was a significant reduction in yield of both maize (28.8%) and watermelon (57.8%) in the intercrop compared with the sole crop yields. However, the mean land equivalent ratio of 1.13 for yield showed that intercropping had advantages as, on average, an area planted with sole crops would require 13% more land than an intercrop production to generate the same outcome. In the second experiment, carried out in another area with 16 farmers' fields, drought was more pronounced and only watermelon developed to maturity. Intercroppings with maize and sorghum resulted in 70% and 69% yield reduction, respectively. In conclusion, watermelon is a good companion crop for intercropping with cereals to mitigate the risk of total crop failure due to drought.
I N T RO D U C T I O NIntercropping with two or more crop plants grown in mixture is a common practice in developing countries of the tropics (Seran and Brintha, 2010;Willey, 1990). One important reason for the widespread use is the increase in productivity per unit of land that may be achieved (Seran and Brintha, 2010). Several studies have shown that farmer's adoption of intercropping schemes may be ascribed to improved use of resources providing yield stability, soil protection, better economic returns and a more secure food supply (Mucheru-Muna et al., 2010;Seran and Brintha, 2010;Willey, 1990). This resource use efficiency is related to both an inherent efficiency of the component crops and complementary effects between crops in the system. In addition, intercrop effects depend on cultivation practices like planting time and density, water and nutrient supply, etc. (Seran and Brintha, 2010;Zegada-Lizarazu et al., 2005).
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