Better use of land through intercropping of canola with wheat

Abundance of solar radiation and availability of good irrigation are the key factors that guarantee higher yields when adapted crops are sown in soil with conducive micro-environments. However, availability of abundance of good soil is limited in Pakistan especially in the North West Frontier Province. Wheat is the principal food crop in Pakistan and its production is also far less than the requirements of the NWFP. Similarly, there is acute shortage of edible oil from domestic sources. Therefore, all efforts are made to increase the edible, oilseed production without the area under major crops. In such a situation one of the options is to increase the land utilization through intercropping of the oilseed crops with the major crops. Therefore, the present study was under taken to find out the feasibility of land utilization efficiency of intercropping of canola with wheat, at the Agriculture Research Institute Tarnab, Peshawar during 1998-99. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block with four replications. Wheat variety Inqilab-91 and Canola variety Dunkled were planted as sole crops and intercropped with different row combinations. Results indicated that there was no significant effect of intercropping plant height, days to flowering and physiological maturity of the companion crops. While grain yield of wheat and canola were significantly decreased in intercropping as compared to their sole crops. intercropping decreased yield of Wheat from 3678 Kg/ha to 2522 Kg/ha while the grain yield of canola decreased from 1761 Kg/ha to 433 Kg/ha. However, losses in yield of respective intercrops were compensated greatly by additional harvest of the companion crops. Maximum land equivalent ratio (LER) of 1.26 was obtained from intercrop combination of two rows of wheat with one row of canola, indicating better land utilization efficiency and more income for the farmers.