Competitive behaviour of component crops in different sesame-legume intercropping systems

Abstract

The competitive behavior of components crops in different sesame-based intercropping systems under different planting patterns was studied on a sandy-clay loam soil at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad for two consecutive years. The planting patterns comprised 40 cm spaced single row, 60 cm spaced 2-rows strips and 100 cm spaced 4-rows strips, while the intercropping systems were sesame alone, sesame + mungbean, sesame + mashbean, Sesame + soybean, and sesame + cowpea. The sesame grown in association with different gain legumes appeared to be a dominant crop as indicated by its higher values of relative crowding coefficient, competitive ratio and positive sign of the aggressively. This led to the conclusion that sesame grown in association with mungbean, mashbean, soybean and cowpea utilized the resources more aggressively than the respective intercrops, which appeared to be dominated. Regardless of the planting patterns, mungbean proved to be more compe titive than mashbean, soybean and cowpea, which exhibited almost similar competitive behavior.