Interspecific competition, growth and productivity of maize and pea in intercropping mixture

<p>A field trial was conducted to study the interspecific competition, growth and productivity of maize and pea in<br>intercropping mixture in the department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University from November<br>2009 to April 2010. In this intercrop association, maize was considered as main crop and pea as intercrop. The<br>experiment comprised of four treatments namely, (i) sole maize, (ii) sole pea, (iii) single row intercropping<br>mixture (1M:1P i.e. single row of maize followed by single row of pea), and (iv) double row intercropping mixture<br>(1M:2P i.e., single row of maize followed by double rows of pea). Dry matter accumulation in cob/pod of each<br>population plants was the maximum in sole cropped plants while that was found minimum in 1M: 2P<br>intercropped plants especially for pea while 1M: 1P intercropped plants ranked intermediate. The 1M:2P<br>combined maize and pea mixture produced maximum seed yield (7.82 t ha-1) which was about 10, 28 and 47%<br>higher yield than the yield obtained from 1M:1P combined mixture stands (7.04 t ha-1), sole maize (5.65 t ha-1)<br>and sole pea (4.15 t ha-1), respectively. The single and double row combined intercropping mixtures gave the<br>highest land equivalent ratio (1.31 and 1.47) and area time equivalent ratio (1.33 and 1.25, respectively). In both<br>1M: 1P and 1M: 2P intercropping mixtures, maize population exhibited strongly higher competition over pea. The<br>1M: 1P and 1M: 2P intercropping mixtures generated 1.44 and 1.71-fold higher maize equivalent yield as<br>compared to the yield obtained from maize alone.