Performance of Different Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) based Intercropping Systems with Millets under Rainfed Condition of Odisha

Abstract

Background: Groundnut as a sole crop is affected by adverse weather conditions coupled with damage by insect, pest and disease, results in economic losses and in extreme cases complete failure of the crop. Intercropping is one of the important cropping systems recommended to mitigate the aberrant climatic conditions with an aim to increase total productivity per unit area. The present study was done to assess the effect of different millet based intercropping system on growth and yield of groundnut under rainfed condition. Methods: A field experiment was conducted during kharif 2018 and 2019 at Agricultural Research Farm of All India Coordinated Research Project on Groundnut, OUAT, Bhubaneswar on mixed red and black medium soil. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design and replicated thrice. It consisted of ten treatments comprising of groundnut with three millets viz., finger millet, little millet and foxtail millet. Millets were intercropped with groundnut in the replacement series of 4:2 and 2:1 row proportion along with mono-cropped millets and groundnut. Result: Significantly higher no. branches/plant (5.2), leaflet/no. plant (79.33) and dry matter accumulation (25.77g/plant) was recorded in groundnut + finger millet (2:1) whereas, sole groundnut incurred significantly higher pod no/plant (16.5), 100 kernel weight (37.2g), shelling% (77.8), pod yield (1736 kg/ha) and haulm yield (3613 kg/ha) over all other intercropping systems. Further, groundnut pod equivalent yield (GPEY), land equivalent ratio (LER), area time equivalent ratio (ATER) and economics were higher in 2:1 row ratio of groundnut + finger millet compared to any of the sole and intercropping systems. The competition ratio and aggressivity of little millet was greater than that of other millets. So, it was most dominant crop over groundnut compared to other millets in the intercropping systems.