Effects Of Intercropping Coffee With Food Crops

A field experiment to evaluate the effect of intercropping coffee with food crops was conducted at Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) Headquarters, Idi-Ayunre, Ibadan, Oyo State and substations located at Uhonmora Edo State and Kusuku Mambilla Plateau, Taraba State between 1996 and1998. Three food crops comprising of maize, cassava, and plantain were involved as early shading of 3 and 12 months duration and late shading of more than 12 months duration respectively. These were intercropped with coffee seedlings. The experimental design was RCB with five treatments coffee sole, coffee/maize, coffee/cassava, coffee/plantain and coffee/maize/cassava/plantain, replicated four times. Results obtained showed that in the coffee /plantain intercrop was significantly taller in height than recorded for other intercrop. The same trend obtained for plant height was observed in other morphological parameters of plant girth, leaf number and leaf area. In all the treatments, coffee/plantain intercrop gave the greatest yield on land equivalent ratio (LER). JARD Vol. 3 2004: pp. 27-3