Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

INTERCROPPING OF LINSEED (LINUM USITATISSIMUM) AND LATHYRUS (LATHYRUS SATIVUS) AS INFLUENCED BY MOISTURE CONSERVATION PRACTICE IN RICE FALLOW

H. Saikia, R. Dutta and S. Kalita

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, during the rabi season of 2021- 2022 to evaluate a suitable linseed and lathyrus intercropping system (s) in rice fallow and to evaluate the effect of mulching with paddy straw on growth and yield of linseed and lathyrus intercropping system. The treatments were laid out in a factorial randomized block design with three replications. The experiment consisted of two factors, viz. mulching and cropping systems. There were two levels of mulching viz. no mulching (M0) and mulching @ 2 tons/ha (M1) of paddy straw and five levels of cropping systems viz. sole linseed (C1), sole lathyrus (C2) linseed: lathyrus 1:1 ratio (C3), linseed: lathyrus 2:1 ratio (C4) and linseed:lathyrus 3:1 ratio (C5). Mulching with paddy straw @ 2 tons per hectare resulted in a significant increase in the growth and yield attributing parameters of both linseed and lathyrus. Among the cropping systems, the highest growth and yield parameters of linseed were obtained from linseed: lathyrus 1:1 row ratio succeeded by 2:1 and 3:1. Linseed had shown better performance when intercropped with lathyrus as compared to sole crop. However, lathyrus could perform best under sole cropping compared to intercropping systems since linseed offered competition to lathyrus. The highest relative crowding coefficient and land equivalent ratio was obtained from linseed: lathyrus 1:1 ratio followed by 2:1 and 3:1. Linseed+lathyrus 1:1 row ratio also resulted in the highest linseed equivalent yield among all the intercropping systems.