Effects of nitrogen levels and intercropping ratios on yield of intercropping of corn and sunflower in Khouzestan conditions

Subject Areas : crop production

nader moosavian ¹

1 - دانشگاه پيام نور؛ تهران

Received: 2010-08-21 Accepted : 2011-07-11 Published : 2010-06-24

Keywords: Corn, Intercropping, Land equivalent ratio, Relative crowding coefficient, Nitrogen, Sunflower,

Abstract :

To study the effect of intercropping and nitrogen fertilizer treatments on the grain yield, a field experiment was conducted at the research farm of the Islamic Azad Uuiversity, Shooshtar, in 2005. The planting methods were laid out in a randomized complete block design in split-plot arrangements keeping different nitrogen rates, (50, 100 and 150 kg from urea resource) as main plots and various rates of intercropping corn-sunflower as sub plots with three replications. The intercropping treatments were S1 (100% sunflower), S2 (25% corn plus 75% sunflower), S3 (50% corn plus 50% sunflower), S4 (75% corn plus 25% sunflower) and S5 (100% corn). The results of the study indicated that seed yield of sunflower and grain yield of corn, total yield of sunflower and corn, 1000-seed weight and oil percentage of sunflower were significant. But 1000-grain weight and the grain number per pod wasn’t significant. The highest grain yield observed in N2S1 and N3S5 for sunflower and corn, was respectively (462 and 1319 per gr.m-2). In intercropping got the highest and the lowest seed yield of sunflower to pure stand and in S3, and at corn got to pure stand and in S4, respectively. An increase in nitrogen proportion raised the land equivalent ratio (LER). The highest and the lowest land equivalent ratio for grain yield were observed in hybrid levels of S4 and S3, respectively. The highest and the lowest land equivalent ratio (LER) were relevant to N1S2 and N3S4 (1.85 and 1.08, respectively). In addition, the highest and the lowest relative crowding coefficient (K) were relevant to N3S4 and N3S2 (0.2 and 7.2, respectively).

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