AZIZOLLAH ALI TAVAKOLI, HAMID REZA GANJALI,*, HAMID REZA MOBASSER, AHMAD MEHRABAN AND GHOLAM REZA AFSHARMANESH
Department of Agriculture, Jiroft Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Center, Jiroft, Iran
*(e-mail : hr.ganjali@yahoo.com; Mobile : 009151415572)
(Received : January 21, 2020; Accepted : March 18, 2020)
ABSTRACT
In order to improve the water use efficiency in intercropping maize and cowpea, an experiment was conducted in Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center Station of Jiroft during 2016 and 2017, using strip
plots in randomized block design with four replications. The vertical factor (A) compensated of water requirement at three levels of a1 = 60%, a2 = 80% and a3 = 100% evaporation rate; and the factor (B) was intercropping treatments, including : b1 = 100% cowpea (sole cropping), and b2 = 75% cowpea + 25% maize, b3 = 50% cowpea + 50% maize, b4 = 25% cowpea + 75% maize and b5 = 100% maize (sole cropping). The results showed that the highest and lowest grain yield in intercropping maize with cowpea was obtained from the treatments of a3b2=10900 kg/ha and a1b2=7800 kg/ha, and the highest and lowest grain yield in intercropping cowpea with maize was obtained from the treatments of a3b1 = 2250 kg/ha and a1b1 = 1275 kg/ha. The highest and lowest land equivalent ratio (LER) was obtained from the treatments of a2b4=1.96 and a3b4=1.84, respectively. Water use consumption for maize at the three levels was : a1 = 4980 m3/ha, a2=6640 m3/ha, a3 = 8300 m3/ha and for cowpea was : a1 = 4740 m3/ha, a2 = 6320 m3/ha and a3=7900 m3/ha. There was no significant difference between intercropping treatments but different levels of water used at 5% level were significant. In terms of economic income, the highest and the lowest were obtained under maize mono culture.
Key words : Pure culture, intercropping, water requirement, land equivalent ratio