Approaches Used to Compare Cropping Systems

Transcription

1 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 2014 (ICPP 2014) Enhancing Strategic Plant Physiological Research and Technologies for Sustainable Resources August 2014 (Bali, Indonesia) Approaches Used to Compare Cropping Systems Sivasangari Jagatheeswaran & Sue Walker Programme Support Manager (SystemPLUS) Crops for the Future Research Centre (CFFRC) The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia Copyright CFFRC

2 BACKGROUND CFFRC aims at increasing food security and productivity, in the context of climate risk and change, through the development of more resilient, profitable and sustainable intercropping farming systems OBJECTIVE To provide an overall view and evaluation of cereal-legume intercropping as compare to sole cropping in terms of:- I. Radiation Use Efficiency (RUE) II. Water Use Efficiency (WUE) III. Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) supported by a number of key examples from the published literature which point out its great value in the context of sustainable agriculture. Copyright CFFRC

3 INTRODUCTION Intercropping is growing two or more crop species simultaneously on the same field Interactions between plants of different species growing together Goal of intercropping is to produce a greater yield on a given piece of land - use of resources that would otherwise not be utilised by a single crop Diversifying agricultural systems using underutilised crops and complex cropping systems

4 RESULTS & DISCUSSION Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) LER-measure of efficiency of an intercrop or mixture. LER compares land area required under sole cropping to give yields obtained from the components crops of mixture. Values grater than one indicate intercropping to be more efficient than sole cooping in terms of land use, while values less than one indicate a loss in efficiency due to intercropping. LER>1, were reported for mix-proportions showing that the intercropping of a legume with a cereal is advantageous. The LER values from crop mixtures were significantly different with each other, having maximum land indices when two crops were grown in the same rows. It seems profitable on unit area basis to have the two crop combined in the same rows for most economical yields and the best usage of available land.

5 Seed yield and land equivalent ratios of maize and soybeans in sole crops and intercrop systems planted in 2001 at Njoro (Kipkemoi et al, 2010)

6 RESULTS & DISCUSSION(cont.) Radiation Use Efficiency (RUE) RUE was determined based on the interception of PAR and dry matter yield. Intercropped bean and maize had 77 % higher RUE than sole cropped beans (Tsubo & Walker, 2003). Similar to maize soybean intercropping has better use of solar radiation over monocrops ( Keating & Carberry, 1993) Incident radiation in an intercropping are total amount of light intercepted and efficiency which intercepted light converted to dry matter

7 RESULTS & DISCUSSION (cont.) WATER USE EFFICENCY (WUE) WUE, defined as the ratio of grain yield to total actual evapotranspiration WUE in a maize-cowpea intercrop was higher than in the sole crops, when soil water not limiting Improvement of WUE in these systems lead to increase the uses of other resources Intercropping identified to conserve water largely because of early high leaf area index and higher overall combined leaf area of both crops

8 Water use efficiency (g kg 1) of maize and pea cultivars in sole and intercrops in 2000 and 2001 (Kanton et al., 2004) INDICATOR

9 CONCLUSION Radiation Use Efficiency (RUE), Water Use Efficiency (WUE) and Land Equivalent Ratios (LER) indices show that intercropping is more efficient that sole cropping. Demonstrates using combination of approaches useful to assess diversity of essentially complex system and promote benefit. This correlates with CFFRC projects 1. Application of vegetation indices for rapid crop screening in intercropping environments 2. Comparison of Napier grass (pennisetum purpureum) and Taro (colocasia esculenta) as potential species for intercropping with Oil palm intercropped is more land efficient than sole crooping, but can t completely compensate for decreased area Famer interest in wheat-mungbean, millet-mungbean, & sorghum-chickpea relay The State of Queensland, Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, Copyright CFFRC

10 REFERENCES Kanton, R.A.L. and Dennett, M.D Water uptake and use by morphologically constrasting maize/pea cultivars in sole and intercrops in temperate conditions. Expl. Agric.40: Keating, B.A. and Carberry, P.S Resource capture and use in intercropping: Solar radiation. Field Crops Research 34: Kipkemoi, P.L. Wasike, V.W. Ooro, P.A. Riungu, T.C and Rogocho, L.M Effects of intercropping pattern on soya bean and maize yield in center rift valley Kenya. In. Proceedings 12th KARI Biennial Scientific Conference, 8 12 November Nairobi, Kenya. Retrieved on 12 July PING%20PATTERN%20ON%20SOYABEAN%20AND%20MAIZE%20YIELD.pdf. Tsubo, M. and Walker, S Shade effects on Phaseolus vulgaris L. Intercropped with Zea mays L. under well- watered conditions. J. Agronomy and Crop Science 190: Copyright CFFRC

11 Thank You Copyright CFFRC