Agroeconomic evaluation of intercropping rocket and carrot by uni- and multivariate analyses in a semi-arid region of Brazil

The emergence of new vegetable cultivars enables the development of novel combinations of intercrops. Producers require information and comparative data on the behavior of these cultivars in intercropping agroecosystems to learn which crops can combine well and can consequently provide higher productivity and agroeconomic efficiency. This study evaluated the agroeconomic performance of two carrot and two rocket cultivars in a strip-intercropping system, with two harvests of rocket, under the hot and sunny conditions of the municipality of Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte, in northeastern Brazil. The experiments used a randomized complete block design with five replicates and treatments arranged in a 2×2 factorial scheme. The treatments were the four possible combinations of two carrot cultivars (Brasília and Esplanada) and two rocket cultivars (Cultivada and Folha Larga). Each block contained plots of these four treatments and four monocultured plots, one for each carrot and rocket cultivar, for evaluating the efficiencies of the intercropping indices. Each treatment was evaluated for commercial productivity of carrots, green mass yield of rocket, land equivalent ratio, productive efficiency index, gross income, net income, rate of return and profit margin. Intercropping of the rocket cultivar Folha Larga and the carrot cultivar Brasilia is recommended. The multivariate analysis of the vegetable crop yields as compared to the univariate analysis of land equivalent ratio and productive efficiency index was quite effective in the discrimination of the carrot cultivars in the intercropping systems. However, this same method of multivariate analysis applied to the yields of the same vegetable crops when compared to the univariate analysis of the same indices was not effective in the discrimination of the rocket cultivars in the intercropping systems.