Profitability of using irrigation in forage cactus-sorghum intercropping for farmers in semi-arid environment

Abstract

Irrigation plays a fundamental role in advancing agricultural frontiers and increasing crop productivity, especially in semi-arid environments, because they exhibit high spatiotemporal rainfall variation. This practice is suggested even for adapted crops, such as forage cactus (Opuntia sp.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), and single or intercropping systems. In this study, aimed to evaluate the profitability of using irrigation in a single and intercropping forage cactus-sorghum system in a semi-arid region. The experimental design was in randomized blocks in a 5 × 3 factorial arrangement: five drip irrigation depths (0, 25, 50, 75, and 100% of the reference evapotranspiration - ET0) and three cropping systems (single forage cactus, single sorghum, and intercropping forage cactus-sorghum), with four replicates. The 0% ET0 treatment corresponded to rainfed conditions at a depth of 355 mm. A cycle of forage cactus and two sorghum cultivars (plant and regrowth) was conducted between November 2014 and November 2015. It was verified that the highest costs for implantation of the crop systems in irrigated conditions are due to the acquisition of irrigation and input systems, representing 85.3% of the effective operational cost. The single sorghum and forage cactus-sorghum systems provided the highest fresh matter productivity (62,013.05 and 60,075.36 kg ha-1, respectively). Based on economic indicators, the adoption of irrigation depths (25, 50, 75, and 100% ET0) promoted profits for the systems (single and intercropping) from the second year of implementation.

Indicadores de eficiência biológica, habilidade competitiva e benefício econômico de sistemas de produção sustentável de forragem: Uma revisão

“…Com subsídios de índices de eficiência biológica, habilidade competitiva e benefício econômico, pode-se determinar quais os melhores arranjos de cultivos consorciados e quais espécies são mais adequadas para este sistema, aumentando a eficiência da utilização dos recursos naturais e aumento da produtividade por área (Gitari et al, 2020;Jardim et al, 2021d). No entanto, para mitigar os efeitos do déficit hídrico durante os períodos secos do ano, a utilização estratégica da irrigação pode aumentar o desempenho das plantas e possibilitar maiores ciclos ao longo do ano, contribuindo para uma maior eficiência dos sistemas agropecuários do semiárido, e torna-os mais rentáveis (Queiroz et al, 2016;Lima et al, 2018b;Jiang et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022;Silva et al, 2023).…”