Abstract

Field experiments were conducted at the Department of Agronomy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during kharif and rabi season of 2000-2003 under rainfed condition to study the effect of strip and intercropping of legumes on finger millet productivity. The treatments included the base crop of finger millet (CO 13) with strip and intercropping of pigeon pea, grain cowpea, green gram and vegetable cowpea and compared with farmers practice of broad casting finger millet in the 1.5 m space and two rows of pigeon pea. The results revealed that the higher finger millet grain yield of 2015 kg ha and straw yield of 6135 kg hat were recorded with intercropping of finger millet (CO 13) with vegetable cowpea (CO 4) at 8:2 ratio. Highest net return (Rs.15984 ha) and B:C ratio (4.18) was recorded with inter cropping of finger millet (CO 13) with pigeon pea CO 5. Legumes under strip cropping recorded higher vegetable yield than under intercropping systems.

Keywords: Finger millet, legumes, strip cropping, intercropping, yield, grain equivalent yield, economics.