Practice of intercropping and its impact on legume productivity in Egypt

Abstract

In Egypt, conserving irrigation water and raising crop output are significant concerns. Egypt's climate ranges from semi-arid and arid to desert. The number of summer legumes cultivated on a per-capita basis is declining. Excessively applied nitrogen (N) mineral fertilization and irrigation water are widespread agricultural techniques that harm the quality of the soil and the surrounding environment. It should be possible to increase overall agricultural yield while working with scarce agricultural resources through intercropping. In developing countries, intercropping is the most common farming system for increasing and maintaining agricultural production. As a widely spaced crop, maize provides ample opportunity for the practice of intercropping. Legumes are well-known for their effectiveness as intercropping companions. In light of this information, an investigation into the possibility of intercropping maize with legumes, specifically groundnut and green gram, was carried out. Seeds for groundnuts and green grams were sown between rows of paired row maize. The results demonstrated that the intercropping system had no considerable impact on maize grain and straw yields. However, there was a substantial disparity in total biomass production between the experiments; maize and groundnut (2:3) recorded the highest yield, followed by groundnut (2:2) and green gram (2:3). The land equivalent ratio (LER) unequivocally demonstrated the benefits of intercropping, and the highest LER was achieved by growing maize and groundnut (2:1).

Keywords

• cropping systems
• intercropped legumes
• maize
• mey
• rcbd