EFFECT OF INTERCROPPING OF GRAIN LEGUMES ON THE YIELD AND QUALITY OF FLUE-CURED TOBACCO (NICOTIANA TABACUM L.) IN VERTISOLS.

Abstract

Field experiments conducted from 1982-1983 to 1984-1985 at the Central Tobacco Rc- search Institute, Rajahmundry revealed that tobacco + pigeonpea either 1:1 or 2:1, tobacco + chickpea 1:1 and tobacco+pigeonpea either 1:1 or 2:1, tobacco+chickpea 1:1 and tobacco+mung 1:2 as additive series resulted in cured leaf and total bright leat equivalent (TBLE) production as that of sole tobacco. Nitrogen fertilizer upto 20 kg.ha¹ remarkably increased the cured leaf and bright leaf production over no N. Applied N showed no effect on grain yield of legumes. Intercropping tobacco with chickpea either in 1: 1 or 2:2, pigeonpea in 1:1 or mung in 2:2 pattern maintained similar leaf quality in terms of sugar/nicotine ratios as sole tobacco. Tobacco manufac- turing quality components such as equivalent moisture content (EMC) filling value and pore volume remained unaltered by intercropping with grain legume. Increasing N fertilizer increased the leaf nicotine content and decreased the reducing sugar and sugar:nicotine ratio. Land equiva- lent ratios and the total economic productivity was higher when tobacco was intercropped with pigeonpea in 1:1 or 2:1 pattern.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.A01898

Pages

428 - 434

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

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