International Journal of Agroforestry and Silviculture Vol. 1 (3), pp. 031-036, March, 2014. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Impact of bamboo species on growth and yield attributes of Kharif crops under agroforestry system in wasteland condition of the Central India

Rahangdale C.P*, Pathak N.N and Koshta L.D

Department of Forestry, Jawaharlal Nehru Agriculture University, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: rchhatrapal87@gmail.com

Accepted 8 January, 2014

Abstract

The experiment was conducted in 3 year old plantation of bamboo species planted at a spacing of 5m x 5m during rainy season of 2007-08. The experiment consisted of two bamboo species viz., Dandrocalamus strictus and Bambusa arundinacea in main plot and four different Kharif crops viz. Moong (TM-99-37), Soybean (JS-335), Paddy (JR-201) and Til (TKG 21) in sub plot under split plot design with three replication. These Kharif crops were also sown in the open plot without bamboo species, which served as control plot. Result showed non–significant differences among the bamboo species. However, different Kharif crops showed significant differences among themselves. Magnitude of mean of all the growth and yield attributing characters of different Kharif crops was found highest in the open condition as compared to bamboo based agrisilviculture system. Among the different Kharif crops, soybean showed highest yield reduction (67.88% and 49.22%) in the magnitude for grain and straw followed by moong (61.14% and 47.25%), til (50.65% and 39.71%) and paddy (36.55% and 19.78%). The economic analysis of the system showed the economic feasibility of bamboo based agrisilviculture system (Rs 21029 ha^-1) as it gave higher monetary return as compared to sole crop (Rs 9801 ha^-1). On the basis of mean of both bamboo species, growing of moong with bamboo species gave significantly higher net monetary return (Rs 27736 ha^-1) but at par with til (Rs 23365 ha^-1) and was found significantly superior to paddy (Rs 19693 ha^-1) and soybean (Rs 13322 ha^-1) under bamboo based agrisilviculture system. Hence bamboo based agroforestry system is a viable option for raising the overall production as well as productivity of the farming systems.

Key words: Agro forestry, bamboo species, kharif crops, impact assessment, wasteland.