Untitled

Abstract

In rainfed and dry regions of southern Karnataka, sole cropping is not much remunerative in the current scenario of climate change to meet the pulses requirement of growing population. Hence, the field experiment was conducted at Zonal Agricultural Research Station, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bengaluru during Kharif, 2021 to evaluate the most promising intercrops (sweet corn, baby corn, sorghum, vegetable soybean, field bean, quinoa and grain amaranth) in pigeonpea based cropping system and its effect on growth, yield and economics of pigeonpea where previously pigeonpea was cultivated as a sole crop. The experiment was laid out in RCBD with 15 treatments each replicated thrice. Higher pigeonpea seed and stalk yield (852 and 1678 kg ha -1 , respectively) were observed in pigeonpea + field bean (1:2) intercropping which was on par with vegetable soybean (1:2). The data revealed that higher seed yield was mainly attributed to higher plant height, leaf area, total dry matter production, no. of pods and pods weight per plant. However, planting of pigeonpea with sweet corn (1:2) as intercrop recorded higher pigeonpea equivalent yield (2724 kg ha -1 ), net returns (Rs. 2, 96,750 ha -1 ) and benefit: cost ratio (4.91) than rest of the treatments. Whereas, higher system indices like land equivalent ratio (1.43) and area time equivalent ratio (1.19) were recorded with pigeonpea + field bean (1:2) intercropping system.