Yield potential and land-use efficiency of wheat and faba bean mixed intercropping

Abstract

-In Ethiopia, food production for a rapidly growing population from a continually shrinking farm size is a prime developmental challenge. Rising input costs, decline in soil quality, and buildup of insect pests, diseases and weeds have threatened the ecological and economic sustainability of crop production. To address those issues, intercropping of cereals with pulse crops could increase total grain production, provide diversity of products, stabilize yield over seasons, reduce economic and environmental risks common in monoculture systems, and thereby enhance sustainability. Here, mixed intercropping of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) with faba bean (Vicia faba L.) was compared with sole culture of each species in 2002 and 2003 at Holetta Agricultural Research Center, in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The treatments were sole wheat at a seed rate of 175 kg ha −1 , sole faba bean at a seed rate of 200 kg ha −1 , and an additive series of 12.5, 25, 37.5, 50 and 62.5% of the sole faba bean seed rate mixed with the full sole wheat seed rate. Our results showed that mixed intercropping increased the land equivalent ratio by +3% to +22% over sole cropping. Increasing the faba bean seed rate in the mixture from 12.5 to 62.5% reduced wheat grain yield from 3601 kg ha −1 to 3039 kg ha −1 but increased faba bean grain yield from 141 kg ha −1 to 667 kg ha −1 . Sole culture grain yield exceeded mixed culture grain yield by +5 to +25% for wheat and by +172 to +1190% for faba bean. Nonetheless, we obtained the highest total grain yield of 4031 kg ha −1 , gross monetary value of US$ 823, system productivity index of 4629 and crowding coefficient of 4.70 when wheat at its full seed rate was intercropped with faba bean at a rate of 37.5%. On average, weed biomass was reduced from 40.4 g m −2 in sole wheat to 31.1 g m −2 in mixed culture and the chocolate spot disease score was reduced from 5.1 in sole faba bean to 3.4 in mixed culture. In conclusion, intercropping of wheat with faba bean may increase total yield and revenue, reduce weed and disease pressure, increase land-use efficiency, and thereby enhance sustainability of crop production in Ethiopian highlands. aggressivity / crowding coefficient / faba bean / land-use efficiency / intercropping / wheat

Cereal-pea intercrops to improve sustainability in bioethanol production

“…Grain total LER showed higher variability ranging from 0.92 to 1.26. These values were in line with other studies carried out on cereal-legume intercrops (Agegnehu et al 2008;Chu et al 2004;HauggaardNielsen et al 2006). Grain total LER less than 1 indicated that there was not always complementarity in the use of growth resources and that intraspecific and interspecific competition occurred between components.…”

Ecological principles underlying the increase of productivity achieved by cereal-grain legume intercrops in organic farming. A review

“…It is defined as the simultaneous growth of two or more species in the same field for a significant period of time (Willey 1979a) but without necessarily sowing or harvesting at the same time (Vandermeer et al 1998;Malézieux et al 2009). Niggli et al (2009) describe intercropping as an eco-functional intensification practice which has been widely used to boost crop productivity (Qin et al 2013), increase the land utilization ratio (Agegnehu et al 2008) and emit significantly lower amounts of greenhouse gases compared to sole crops (e.g. Oelhermann et al 2009;Naudin et al 2014).…”

Evaluation of yield and some physiological traits of forage corn affected by chemical and biological nitrogen fertilizers intercropped with sweet basil

“…Hence, one of the methods employed for producing medicine forage is to intercrop useful medicinal plants with predominant forage plants (Safikhani et al, 2014). Intercropping is an old and widespread practice used in many areas of the world (Lithourgidis et al, 2011) that may provide a balanced diet, reduce labor peaks, minimize adverse effects of biotic and abiotic factors, protect soil against erosion, improve the use of limited resources, increase stability of yield and provide higher outputs (Agegnehu et al, 2008). Girma (2015) reported that biological yield of corn was significantly affected by different intercropping systems and compared to sole maize decreased biological yield.…”