Agro-economic assessment of different pigeonpea-mungbean intercropping systems

Investigations into comparative productive efficiency and feasibility of different pigeonpea-mungbean intercropping systems were carried out at the agronomic research area, University of Faisalabad during the summer of 2000. The intercropping systems comprised of pigeonpea alone, pigeonpea + one row of mungbean, pigeonpea + two rows of mungbean, pigeonpea, + three rows of mungbean, pigeonpea + four rows of mungbean and mungbean alone. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with four replications. The net plot size measured 4.8 m x 8.00 m. Pigeonpea was planted in 100 cm, apart four row strips with 20 cm space between the rows of each strip, while the mungbean was intercropped between the strips of pigeonpea. The various yield components of pigeonpea like number of plants m-2, plant height, number of seeds per pod, seed weight per pod, 1000 seed weight, protein content and harvest index were not affected significantly by the various patterns of intercropping under study, while the number of pods per plant, grain weight per plant, biological, seed and straw yields were influenced, significantly. Intercropping of mungbean between the pigeonpea strips in the pattern of one, two, three and four rows reduced the pigeonpea yield to the extent of 14.16, 21.45, 30.47 and 36.76 percent, respectively over that of pigeonpea alone, while at the cost of this reduction in pigeonpea yield, additional harvests of 372, 625, 658 and 750 kg ha-1 of mungbean were obtained in the respective patterns which compensated more than the losses in pigeonpea production. The highest total grain yield of 2054 kg ha-1 was recorded in case of pigeonpea + two rows of mungbean intercropping system as against 1934, 1924, 1919, 1820 and 1078 kg pigeonpea + three rows of mungbean, pigeonpea + four rows of mungbean, pigeonpea alone and mungbean alone, respectively. In terms of monetary gain, the highest net income of Rs. 31825 ha-1was obtained from pigeonpea + two rows of mungbean intercropping systems as against Rs. 29589, 29583, 29354, 26661 and 14967 ha-1 for pigeonpea + one row of mungbean, pigeonpea+ three rows of mungbean, pigeonpea + four rows of mungbean, pigeonpea, alone and mungbean alone, respectively. The highest LER value of 1.40 was recorded for pigeonpea + two rows of mungbean intercropping system as against 1.20, 1.30 and 1.34 for pigeonpea + one row of mungbean, pigeonpea + three rows of mungbean and pigeonpea + four rows of mungbean, respectively. It is concluded that intercropping of mungbean in pigeonpea not only appeared to be a productive practice but also highly remunerative and economical compared to sole cropping pigeonpea.