Bio-economic assessment of barley and legume crops grown under different planting and water use techniques

Abstract

In Pakistan, population is increasing at rapid rate while cultivated area is shrinking day by day and resources are becoming short. Resources are limited and becoming short for human beings. So, there is a dire need to increase the yield of different cereals and pulses particularly food grains per unit area to maintain a balance between demand and supply gap. The increase in area under winter pulses is difficult due to competition with staple cereals grown. Therefore, present study is planned with the objectives to develop new techniques in order to grow pulses and cereals at the same time for increasing yield per unit area and time. Field experiments were conducted to test the effects of barley, berseem and lentil intercropping during 2014-2015 and 2015-16 at the student farm, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. Both experiments were laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD). The area of each experimental unit was of 3.6 × 7.0 m. In first experiment barley was sown on beds with five planting geometries i.e. flat sowing with row to row distance of 30 cm (Farmer practice), 45 cm spaced three row strips, 60 cm spaced four row strips, 90 cm spaced six row strips and 120 cm spaced eight row strips and berseem was intercropped in between the space of barley strips. Row to row distance in case of crop sown in strips was 15 cm. Similarly, in 2nd experiment lentil was sown on raised beds with similar geometric arrangements as in experiment I and barley was intercropped in between the space of lentil strips as berseem in first experiment. The irrigation was applied in furrows keeping in view the water requirement of the crop sown on lower beds in both experiments, while flood irrigation was applied to conventionally sown treatments. Observations on different agro-physiological parameters of the component crops were recorded by following standard procedures. Data collected were statistically analysed by applying Fisher’s analysis of variance techniques using a computer programme MSTAT-C and least significance difference (LSD) test at 5% probability level was used to compare the differences among treatment means. The results revealed that sole barley accumulated more dry matter than the intercropped barley. The number of grains per spike, 1000-grain weight, biological yield and grain yield were influenced significantly by legume intercrop during both year studies. All the associated cultures reduced barley yield to a significant extent. However, in barley production, the extra harvest obtained from associated cultures rewarded more than losses. Barley-berseem intercropping gave 56 to 68 percent yield advantage on mono-cropped barley with the highest income of Rs. 174258/ha. Similarly, intercropping of barley-lentil gave 69 to 86 percent yield advantage on mono-cropped barley with the highest income of Rs. 143224/ha. Raised bed water use technology caused substantial saving of irrigation water over flat irrigation system. There was a progressive decrease in the amount of water used with increase in the size of strip from 3 to 8 rows with 45 to 120 cm irrigation furrows. The maximum water use efficiency of 4.84 and 3.55 kg/cf3 was recorded for both experiments for 8-row strip system with 120 cm irrigation furrows as compared to 1.49 and 1.18 kg/cf3 for conventional system of flood irrigation application.