Bamboo is one of the world's most important and versatile crops, covering extensive areas, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. There is, however, rising concern about acute scarcity of bamboo products, among which are fresh edible vegetable shoots. Appropriate agronomy and crop management may play a key role in alleviating this situation. From 1994 to 1998, we studied the effects of irrigation and compound fertilizer application on soil water and soil nutrient status, and on growth and shoot yield of Phyllostachys pubescens established in 1990 in southeast Queensland, Australia. Water supply had a major effect on bamboo growth and shoot yield. Without irrigation and only little rainfall (80-140 mm) prior to and during the shoot season in the rst 2 years of the study, shoot numbers were greater in plots closer to a supply of temporal pond water. Harvests were not made in those years. With irrigation in the following years, bamboo shoot numbers and individual shoot weights were much greater at the higher rate of irrigation. Bamboo marginally responded to increasing rates of fertilizer application; notable was the response when it was applied in the inorganic form and combined with the higher irrigation rate. Respective yields under these conditions were 8300, 10 200 and 14 200 kg ha ¡1 of shoots at 250, 375 and 500 kg N ha ¡1 year ¡1 applied as compound fertilizer with N : P : K ratio of 5 : 1 : 2.8. Leaf nitrogen also re ected the yield response to fertilizer, but soil nitrogen did not. Response to an organic (chicken dung) form of fertilizer, albeit providing approximately one half of the rate of inorganic fertilizer, was negligible.
In an attempt to introduce legume green manure to intensive tropical vegetable production, we studied the effects of live-mulch. Soil nitrogen, crop-N status, and yields were closely monitored in a continuous, year-round vegetable sequence from 1992 to 1995 in the ricebased lowland environment of southern Taiwan. When live-mulch was newly established at high density, vegetable yields were negatively affected. With change in proportion and spatial arrangement, inter-specific competition was reduced. Besides direct competition between live-mulch and vegetable intercrops, incorporating legume biomass into the soil resulted in immobilization of available soil nitrogen. This effect was presumably conditioned by seasonal cool temperature. Short-term negative effects of live-mulch on vegetable production were offset in the longer term by a positive influence of previous year's biomass of legume clippings on vegetable yields in 1994/95. No differences were found in mineralized soil nitrogen between no-mulch and live-mulch treatments, but there was indication that crop-N status was better in live-mulch plots. This might have resulted from a slow but sustained mineralization of soil organic nitrogen which was presumably improved by livemulch application and was readily absorbed by vegetables. From a practical viewpoint, a live-mulch-vegetable system is probably too expensive and labour-intensive to implement for the minimal positive longer-term effects. acorresponding author. Present address:
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