Intercropping of Vegetables in Banana
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Date
2015
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Abstract
The present investigation entitled, “Intercropping of vegetables in banana (Musa
Spp.)” was carried out during 2014-15 at All India coordinated Research Project on Fruits in
Horticulture Research Station, OUAT, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
Among all the desert types of banana crop variety Champa is most popular in Odisha
among the people and is commercially cultivated in most of the districts . During commercial
cultivation the crop is grown alone and the interspaces remain unutilised during the crop
growth period. So, an attempt has been taken in the present study to utilise the interspaces in
newly cultivated banana plantation by growing some partial shade loving vegetable and spice
crops. There are seven treatment i.e; T1-Banana+Colocasia, T2-Banana+Elephant foot yam,
T3-Banana+Arrow root,T4-Banana+Ginger, T5-Banana+Mango Ginger, T6-Banana+
Turmeric, T7-Control (No Intercropping).
Sword Suckers of uniform size were planted at a spacing of 2m X 2m and intercrops were
planted inside banana maintaining spacing as per crops yield and yield attributing characters
and performance of the intercrops were recorded during the course of investigation. From the
experiment it was found that banana alone gave an yield of 29.63 t/ha. Where as arrow root
intercropped with banana gave the highest yield of 16.4 t/ha and banana28.88t/ha and
followed by elephant foot yam 13.5 t/ha and banana 29.75t/ha but the minimum yield was
with ginger where a yield of 6.2 t/ha and banana 28.56 was obtained. Banana & Arrow Root
intercropping yielded gross return of Rs.843200/ with a net profit of Rs. 3,98.750/- as
compared to gross return of Rs.810900/ and net profit of Rs. 3,66,450/- with banana +
turmeric and a gross return of Rs.4,44,450 and net profit of Rs. 1,95,750/- in control.
Maximum B:C ratio of 2.38 was obtained in Banana + Arrow Root intercropping as compared
to 2.29 with Banana+Turmeric & minimum in control i.e; 1.78.
So, from the above findings it can be concluded that banana cutivation can be
commercially followed with Banana + Arrow Root intercropping Profitably without
decreasing the returns from banana cutivation alone. However, the intercrops may give
different result under varied edaphic and agroclimatic conditions.