The Evaluation of yield, yield components and indices advantage of intercropping of Populus euramericana with Allium sativum in Karaj conditions

Subject Areas : Sustainable production technologies

Fatemeh Ahmadloo ¹ , Saeedeh Eskandari ²

1 - Assistant Prof., Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran, I.R. Iran
2 - Assistant Prof., Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran, I.R. Iran

Received: 2023-06-24 Accepted : 2023-09-22 Published : 2023-08-23

Keywords: Type of cultivation, land equivalent ratio, Agroforestry, vegetative characteristics, Production yield,

Abstract :

Garlic medicinal plant (Allium sativum) was planted between the rows of poplar (Populus euramericana 92/40) which were planted in March 2017 at a distance of 3 × 4 m, in late autumn of 2017. The statistical design of this research was Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with 3 treatments including (garlic with poplar, pure poplar culture and pure garlic culture),. Garlic cultivation was done in five rows with a length of 21 m and 50 cm between rows in three blocks in November 2017. During each growing season, poplar seedlings and garlic were irrigated once a week. The height and diameter at breast height (DBH) of the poplar trees were measured at the end of each growing season for four years, and then the increment in growth of height, diameter and stem volume (m3/ha/y) were calculated and evaluated using the T-Test. Economic evaluation of each of the pure and intercropped cultivations was done based on the indices of land equality ratio (LER), relative value total (RVT) and index advantage (IA). In 2019 and 2020, there is a statistically significant difference in the characteristics of increment at DBH and height in pure and intercropped cultivations, which is the highest in intercropped poplar culture. In 2020, the highest and lowest biological yields of garlic were obtained in pure cultivation with 8791.67 kg ha-1 and in intercropped cultivation with 2408.33 kg ha-1, respectively. In all the studied years, LER is greater than one and among 1.61 to 2.76, and in general its three-year average obtained 2.28.