Winter vegetables cultivation as intercropping with dragon fruit plant under agroforestry approach

Abstract

The study was conducted in the ‘Agroforestry field laboratory’ of Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh from September 2020 to June 2021. This research study was an agroforestry approach where five winter vegetables viz. spinach, red amaranth, mustard, radish, and turnip with dragon plants. In this study, the two-year-old previously established dragon plants were used as silvicultural components. The planting spacing of the dragon plantation was 3 m * 3 m. Dragon plants were planted in the previously prepared pit. In each pit, three dragon seedlings were planted keeping an RCC pillar in the center of the pit. Winter vegetables were cultivated surrounding the dragon pillar following the Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications. Performances of all studied winter vegetables were observed at different distances from dragon plants pits viz. 0-50cm, 51-100cm and 101-150cm in all directions, considered the different treatments of this study. Winter vegetables and dragon plants were also cultivated as sole crop which was considered as the control treatment for agricultural and silvicultural components. Yield and yield contributing attributes of dragon plants were also observed under sole crops and intercrops. As evidence from the result of this study, it was found that the yield of all studied winter vegetables was significantly influenced by dragon plants. Generally, it was found that the growth and yield of all studied winter vegetables gradually decreased towards the base of the dragon pillar. The average yield reduction of studied all winter vegetables at 0-50, 51-100 and 101-150 cm were 64.75, 20.80 and 1.81%, respectively. The average of all treatments for spinach, red amaranth, mustard, radish, and turnip was 28.20, 28.51, 25.23, 34.08 and 29.36%, respectively compared to sole cultivation of each. Yield and yield attributes of dragon plants were not significantly affected by any studied winter vegetables. The average yield of dragon plants with all studied winter vegetables was 26.01 t ha-1 and it was 27.10 t ha-1 under sole cultivation of dragon plants. Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) for spinach - dragon, red amaranth - dragon, mustard - dragon, radish - dragon and turnip–dragon are 1.67, 1.68, 1.71, 1.62 and 1.66, respectively, which indicates 62-71% yield advantage i.e., under monocultures, 62-71% more land would be needed to match yields from this intercropping.