A field experiment was conducted during kharif for five years (2008 to 2012) at All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture centre, Solapur to evaluate pigeonpea based intercropping systems under Vertisols in scarcity zone of Maharashtra. Among pigeonpea based intercropping systems, pigeonpea + groundnut (1:3) was found superior with mean maximum pigeonpea equivalent yield 1425 kg/ha and mean maximum rainwater use efficiency of 3.19 kg/ha-mm compared to other intercropping systems across five years and also gave mean maximum net returns of ` 30,307/ha. Further, this intercropping system also recorded relatively higher land equivalent ratio of 1.29 indicating yield advantage of 29% compared to sole crops.

A field experiment was carried out during rabi 2008 to 2012 at Mulegaon farm of All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture, Solapur Maharashtra to find out suitable geometry for sorghum + chickpea strip intercropping system on Vertisols under dryland condition. Among the various row proportions studied, sorghum + chickpea (3:3) at 45 cm row spacing system was found to be promising and registered significantly higher net returns (H 28676/ha), sustainable yield index (0.41), better land equivalent ratio (1.43) and rainwater use efficiency (31.93 kg/ha-mm) over the respective sole crops followed by sorghum + chickpea (2:6) at 30 cm row spacing (H 28537, 0.67, 1.43 and 32.81 kg/ha-mm, respectively) and sorghum + chickpea (2:1) at 30 cm row spacing (H 27593, 0.60, 1.33 and 30.96 kg/ha-mm, respectively).

: The GDD was higher in D 2 (MW-28) i.e. 164.