Journal of Applied Biosciences (J. Appl. Biosci.) [ISSN 1997 - 5902]
Volume 16: 835 - 839. Published April 4, 2009.
The effects of spatial arrangement on the yield and yield components of maize in a maize/groundnut intercrop in Nigeria
ABSTRACT
Objective: To identify a suitable spatial arrangement of a maize/groundnut intercrop for optimal grain yields.
Methodology and results: Eleven treatments involving one maize variety (TZESR – W) and two groundnut varieties (RRB and RMP 12) were evaluated in two years. Four spatial arrangements (1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4) were used, mixing maize and each of the groundnut varieties, compared to three controls (sole RMP12, sole RRB and sole maize). The highest maize yield of 4867 kg/ha was from 1:3 maize/groundnut (RMP 12) mixture and the best yield of 1086 kg/ha of groundnut was from 1:4 maize/groundnut (RMP 12) mixture. The growth and subsequent yield of maize was not influenced by the spatial arrangement, however, the growth and yield of groundnut was affected by both varietal differences as well as spatial arrangement. Generally, irrespective of maize/groundnut mixture ratio, variety RRB gave wider spread than RMP 12.
Conclusion and application of findings: The values of Land Equivalent Ratio obtained above unity in all the systems indicated complementarity in resource utilization by the component crops. Therefore, spatial arrangement of 1:3 maize/groundnut (RRB) intercrop can be adopted since it gave the highest LER of 2.01.
Key words
Maize intercropping; spatial arrangement; land equivalent ratio.
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