Multi-cropping practice: Means to sustainable agriculture in the high humid rainforest agroecology of Southern Nigeria

Abstract

Agricultural crop production systems are constantly evaluated to measure its impact on the crop producer, soil, crops and the environment. Hence this investigation was carried out to examine the place of multicropping practice in the drive for sustainable agricultural production in the high humid rainforest agroecology of southern Nigeria. Multicropping allows crop producer to plant two or more crops at a time on the same piece of arable farmland. This practice offers some benefits to crop producer’s resilience, harvest more crop species, income, community and soil quality improvement due to various dead plants and animals parts, nutrients balance due to planting shallow and deep rooted crops; and environmental biodiversity. Our findings revealed multicropping as a practice which offers hope to crop producer with more crops harvested throughout the cropping season, extra income and rich dietary intake of the community. It provides effective pests and diseases control of crops due to crop mix and canopy formation of crops, ameliorate soil physicochemical properties and biodiverse of the environment and act as carbon sink.

Comprehensive Assessment of the Multi-cropping Effect on the Agroecosystems

“…As well as increasing the productivity of the total crop biomass per unit area, the inter-crops protect the main crop from the spread of weeds, diseases, and pests as biodiversity increases. Cover or inter-crops are fast-growing and therefore able to compete well with weeds [37,38]. It should be noted that when assessing the weediness of a crop, the reverse principle of the comprehensive assessment system is at work, i.e., the highest value of the CEI takes on a negative meaning and indicates the highest weediness of the crop.…”

Comprehensive Assessment of the Effect of Multi-Cropping on Agroecosystems

“…As well as increasing the productivity of the total crop biomass per unit area, intercropping protects the main crop from the spread of weeds, diseases, and pests as biodiversity increases. Cover crops and intercrops are fast-growing and therefore able to compete well with weeds [35,36]. It should be noted that when assessing the weediness of a crop, the reverse principle of the comprehensive assessment system applies, i.e., high CEI values take on a negative meaning and indicate higher weediness of the crop.…”