Effect of crop intensification in garden pea grown under natural farming system

Abstract

 

Intercropping with legumes makes efficient use of land and other resources, resulting in lower production costs. The reported work evaluates the effect of crop intensification in garden peas grown under a natural farming system in which pea was intercropped with radish, coriander, spinach and fenugreek. This experiment was conducted during the rabi season 2021-2022 in the Department of Vegetable Science, College of Horticulture, Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan (HP). The result revealed that garden pea cv. ‘Pb-89’ intercropped with radish and fenugreek under natural farming system produced maximum crop equivalent yield (174.17 q ha-1) with net returns of Rs. 396214 ha-1 and B:C ratio of 3.14 followed by the treatment in which pea intercropped with radish and spinach having with crop equivalent yield of 170.50 q ha-1, net returns of Rs. 382806 ha-1 and B:C ratio of 2.97 in comparison to control (Sole crop of pea: RDF @ Urea 55 kg ha-1 + SSP 375 kg ha-1 + MOP 100 kg ha-1 + FYM @ 200 q ha-1). However, the land equivalent ratio was found to be maximum (1.93) under treatment T6 followed by T11 with LER of 1.72 and minimum LER was recorded under T2 i.e., 0.87.