Strip intercropping productivity of modern maize hybrid varieties with pulse crops on a dryland

Abstract

Abstract-Improving crop diversity on a piece of land, such as by intercropping, is one of the adaptation strategies in response to climate change in dryland areas. The aim of the present study was to estimate the strip intercropping productivity that was expressed as a Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) of maize and pulse crops on dryland. Two modern maize hybrid varieties, NK212 (nonpremium) and NK7328 (premium), and two pulse crops, groundnut (Hypoma-1) and mungbean (Vima-1) were grown both as monoculture and strip intercropping. The study was conducted on an Entisol sandy soil area in a dryland sector of Gumantar village, North Lombok (8.253654 S, 116.285695 E). The size of each treatment plot was 8.4 x 5m with an east-west orientation. Maize crops were planted in double-rows with 35 x 20cm spacing within the row and 70cm between the double rows with one seed per hole. Groundnut and mungbean crops were planted at 20 x 20cm with one seed per hole. From these spacings, 70% of th land portion in strip intercropping was for maize and the other 30% was for either groundnut or mungbean. The results showed that the premium variety of maize NK7328 out-yielded NK212, both in monocrop and strip intercropping with mungbean and groundnut. All LER values for the strip intercropping were higher than 1.0, with the highest (1.25) from NK212-mungbean. These results indicate that strip intercropping of maize-pulse crops has a productivity advantage over monoculture on a dryland. In addition to higher productivity, strip intercropping can also spread the risk of crop failure in dryland areas during the recent period of high variability in climate.

Pengenalan Pertanian Cerdas Iklim Melalui Demplot Diversifikasi Tanaman di Lahan Kering Desa Gumantar Kabupaten Lombok Utara

“…Penelitian mengenai manfaat tanaman kacang hijau untuk meningkatkan produktivitas lahan di lahan kering Gumantar sudah dilakukan (Jaya et al, 2017). Terbukti bahwa menambahkan tanaman kacang hijau ke dalam usahatani tanaman jagung dapat meningkatkan pendapatan petani.…”