Intercropping of Sorghum / Soya Bean on Yield and Land Use Efficiency in Dasenech Woreda

@ 2025 | PUBLISHED BY GJR PUBLICATION, INDIA 67 Global Journal of Research in Agriculture & Life Sciences ISSN: 2583-4576 (Online) Volume 05 | Issue 05 | Sept.-Oct. | 2025 Journal homepage: https://gjrpublication.com/gjrals/ Research Article Intercropping of Sorghum / Soya Bean on Yield and Land Use Efficiency in Dasenech Woreda *Biruk Gezahegn Southern Ethiopia Agricultural Research Institute, Jinka Agricultural Research Center, P.O. Box 96, Jinka, Ethiopia. 1. Introduction World population is growing exponentially and it is expected to fulfill the food requirements by setting strategies' for increasing crop productivity per unit area of available land through growing by time and space combination (Seran and Brintha, 2010). Intercropping which is an ancient practice still used in most of developing countries to maximize crop productivity (Machado, 2009), basically consists of cultivating two or more crops in the same area of land at the same time. The aim of this cropping system is to optimize factors and environmental resources usage, thus leading to an increased yield or output of the mixture (Li w., et al., 2005; Dwivedi et al., 2015). Ethiopia has expanded agro ecological conditions that favor cultivation of major food crops; however, there are limiting factors for crop production. Traditional cropping systems, poor cultivation methods, inappropriate planting time, low soil fertility, poor weed management, diseases and insect pests, low yielding varieties are the main ones (Tolera, 2003). The improvement of crop productivity is the common aim of farmers and agriculturists. Thus, the key for sustainable agriculture probably lies in increased output per unit area together with arable land expansion. When crops are cultivated in multiple cropping system like intercropping result higher yield on a given piece of land by making more efficient use of the available environmental resources (Lithourgidis et al., 2011) using a mixture of crops with different rooting ability, canopy structure, height and nutrient requirements based on the complementary utilization of growth resources by the component crops (Dwivedi et al., 2015). Complementary effects between component crops, more effective use of water, nutrients and solar energy, buffering effect of the mixture on disease and insect pest enhances intercrop productivity over sole cropping (Li et al.,1999 and Chen et al., 2004). Best utilization of growth resources and modified microclimate by component crops of intercropping for their better yield performance are practical only when the right planting pattern of component crops is followed. Planting pattern defines the pattern of distribution of plants over the ground, which determines the shape of the area available to the individual plants (Willey, 1979b). Increased productivity of intercropping over sole cropping has been attributed to better use of solar radiation, nutrients and water and fewer incidences of insect pest and disease (Willey, 1990). Planting pattern of intercrops is an important management practice that can improve better use of these resources and opportunities (Reddy et al., 1989; Willey, 1990). Abstract The aim of the study was to determine the effect of intercropping sorghum and soya bean on yield and land use efficiency of both crops in Dasenech district of south Omo zone, Southern Ethiopia. The study was carried out from 2018 to 2019 cropping season. Four intercropping systems (sole sorghum, sole soya bean, one row sorghum to one row soya bean and one row sorghum to two row soya bean) were arranged in a randomized complete block design with four replications. One row sorghum to one row soya bean and one row sorghum to two row soya bean resulted in 50.2 and 26.7% greater land use efficiency than for either crop grown alone. Growing of one row sorghum to one row of soya bean and one row sorghum to two rows of soya bean gave (15575.18) and (8128.03) MAI. One row sorghum and one row soya bean additional monetary benefit than the other crop combination or grown alone. So, one row sorghum to one row soya bean is more profitable to pastoralist/farmers in the study area. Keywords: Inter cropping, sorghum, soya bean, land use efficiency, yield. Global J Res Agri Life Sci. 2025; 5(5), 67-71 @ 2025 | PUBLISHED BY GJR PUBLICATION, INDIA 68 Even though intercropping is traditionally common in Ethiopia including sorghum bean on small land of the home garden with different other pulses, no scientific attempt have been done deeply to determine sorghum/soya bean intercropping system. So, examining best component population of sorghum and soya bean defining the right intercropping ratio and will have great significance for sustainable production. Hence, the study was conducted to evaluate the benefit of inter cropping with sole cropping on yield and yield components. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1 Description of the Study Area On farm experiment conducted at Dasenech woreda South Omo Zone during 2018/19 cropping season. The sites are situated at 4°37′–4°48′ N latitude and 35°56′–36°20′ E longitude with 126 mm to 500 mm. 800-1000 mm and 32-42°C mean annual rainfall and temperature, respectively. The altitude of the areas differs between 353 m.a.s.l and 606 m.a.s.l. 2.2 Experimental Treatments and Procedures Field experiment conducted using 4 treatments and laid in randomized complete block design in 4 replications. The treatments included four cropping system sole sorghum, sole soya bean, one row sorghum to one row soya bean and one row sorghum to two row soya bean. Sorghum planted using 80×15 cm of inter and intra row spacing and two rows of 40 and 20 cm apart were left made between the two sorghum rows to plant soya bean. Seeds of soya bean placed at 10 cm intra spacing. The experiment design was Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. 2.3 Land equivalent ratio This verifies the effectiveness of intercropping for using the resources of the environment compared to sole planting. The LER values were computed using the following formula described by (Abdul Jabbar et al.,2009 and Takim F. O. 2012). LER= Yab/Yaa + Yba/Ybb Where, Yab = Intercrop yield of crop „a‟ Yba = Intercrop yield of crop „b‟ Yaa = Pure stand crop yield of „a‟ Ybb = Pure stand crop yield of „b‟ LER= 1: no advantage of intercrop LER<1: intercropping reduces total yield LER>1: intercropping increase total yield thus beneficial 2.4 Monetary Advantage Index (MAI): The most important part of recommending a cropping pattern is the cost: benefit ratio more specifically total profit, because farmers are mostly interested in the monetary value of return. The yield of all the crops in different intercropping systems and also in sole cropping system and their economic return in terms of monetary value were evalua ted to find out whether maize yield and additional Haricot bean yield are profitable or not. This was calculated with monetary advantage (MA). It is expressed as MAI= (Pab+pba) × LER-1/LER Where, Pab = Pa ×Yab; Pba =Pb ×Yba; Pa = Price of species 'a' and Pb = Price of species 'b'. The higher the index value, the more profitable is the cropping system (Mahapatra Sc., 2011). 2.5 Data collection Plant height, panicle length, thousand seed weight and grain yield were taken from sorghum plant. Plant height, number of pods per plant, number of seed per pod, thousand seed weight and grain yield were taken from soya bean plant. 2.5.1 Sorghum data collection 2.5.1.1 Plant height (cm): Plant height was recorded as the height of plant grown from the ground level from five randomly sampled plants at the end of 50% flowering in each plot. 2.1.1.2 Panicle length (cm): Panicle length was measured of cobs from from five randomly sampled plants at the end of harvest in each plot. 2.5.1.3 Grain Yield (kg/ha): Grain yield were measured from the net plot area and expressed as kg/ha. Grain yield was adjusted to 12.5% moisture content using a digital moisture tester. Global J Res Agri Life Sci. 2025; 5(5), 67-71 @ 2025 | PUBLISHED BY GJR PUBLICATION, INDIA 69 2.5.1.4 Thousand Seed weight: Seed weight was determined by taking a random harvested grain yield by using seed counter and adjusted them to 12.5% moisture content 2.5.2 Soya bean data collection 2.5.2.1 Plant height (cm): Plant height was recorded as the height of plant grown from the ground level from five randomly sampled plants at the end of 50% flowering in each plot. 2.5.2 .2 Number of pods per plant: Number of pods was counted from the same five randomly selected plants at the end of harvest in each plot 2.5.2.3 Number of seeds per pod: Was taken from the same five randomly selected pods at the end of harvest and each of seeds were counted manually in each plot. 2.5.2.4 Grain Yield (kg/ha): Bean yields were measured from the net plot area and expressed as kg/ha. Bean yield was adjusted to 12% moisture using a digital moisture tester 2.5.2.5 Hundred Seed weight: Seed weight was determined by taking a random harvested grain yield by using seed counter and adjusted them to 12.5% moisture content 2.6 Statistical analysis of data Analysis of variance was carried out using SAS-statistical software (SAS Version 6.12, 1997). Significantly differing means were separated using the least significance difference (LSD) test at 5% level of significance as per the procedure described by Gomez and Gomez (1984). 3. Result and discussion 3.1 Effect of crop mixture on sorghum Analysis of variance showed that plant height, panicle length and thousand seed weight weren’t significantly (P< 0.05) influenced by cropping system of sorghum (Table 1). Analysis of variance showed that grain yield significantly (P< 0.05) influenced by cropping system of sorghum. The highest grain yield (3406.67 kg ha-1) was obtained by sole cropping system. This could be attributed to high plant density and lack of competition for resources such as light, nutrients and water Between the intercrops, the grain yield of sorghum is higher when intercropped with the ratio of one row sorghum to one row soya bean 2755.47 kg ha-1 followed by one row sorghum to two row soya bean 2445.00 kg ha-1 (Table 1). Factors that affect competition in intercropping systems were not determined in the present study. However, differences in the depth of roots, lateral root spread and root densities are some of the factors that affect competition between the component crops in an intercropping system for nutrients (Eskandari and Ghanbari, 2009). Table 1: Mean value of sorghum plant height, panicle length, 1000 seed weight and grain yield Treatments PH(cm) PL (cm) TSW GY (Kg ha-1 ) Sole sorghum 221.2 24.6 30.00 3406.67a 1S:1SB 219.27 24.42 29.35 2755.47b 1S:2SB 220.18 24.0 30.17 2445.00c LSD 5% NS NS NS 283.29 CV (%) 16.94 36.3 14.5 19.2 3.2 Effect of crop mixture on soya bean Analysis of variance showed that plant height, number of pods per plant, number of seed per plant and hundred seed weight of soya bean weren’t significantly (P< 0.05) influenced by cropping system of soya bean (Table 2). Soya bean yield was significantly influenced by cropping system. The highest grain yield (1840.13 kg ha-1) was obtained by sole cropping system. The grain yield of soya bean is higher when intercropped with the ratio of one row sorghum to one row soya bean 1556.77 kg ha-1 followed by one row sorghum to two row soya bean 1091.63 kg ha-1 (Table 2). This is consistent with the findings of Sajjad S.K (2014) he observed sorghummung bean intercropping decreased mung bean biological yield as compared to sole cropping of mungbean. It might be due to less photosynthetic activities by mung bean crop due to less exposure to sunlight and canopy covered by sorghum leaves. Global J Res Agri Life Sci. 2025; 5(5), 67-71 @ 2025 | PUBLISHED BY GJR PUBLICATION, INDIA 70 Table 2: Mean value of soya bean plant height, number of pod per plant, number of seed per pod, 100 seed weight and grain yield Treatments PH(cm) NPPP NSPP HSW(gm) GY (Kg ha-1 ) Sole SB 80.26 80.20 3 80.42 1840.13a 1S:1SB 82.13 79.10 3 80.04 1296.77a 1S:2SB 80.83 78.40 3 79.65 1011.63b LSD 5% NS NS NS NS 255.78 CV (%) 19.30 11.90 6.9 14.5 9.98 3.3 Crop productivity and monetary advantage Land equivalent ratio and gross monetary value were used to evaluate the productivity and economic advantage of sorghum – soya bean intercropping, respectively. The analysis of the partial land equivalent ratio of the component crops showed that variation on density of soya bean had significant effect on the partial land equivalent ratio of the bean component (Table 3). Since 50.20% yield advantage was obtained from intercropping of sorghum with soya bean as compared to sole cropped one, intercropping was more efficient in land use than sole cropping. Intercropping advantage may come from better resources (moisture, light and nutrient) utilization with low interspecific interaction and better complementary effect. Intercropping of sorghum with soya bean more economic advantage (15575.18 Ebirr) than the other crop combination (Table 3). Soya bean under sole cropping higher economic advantage than when it was intercropped with sorghum that may be related to more number of populations, absence of interspecific interaction and better resource utilization under sole cropping system than when it was intercropped. In line with this result, Niringiye et al. (2005) reported that intercropping of maize with different population density of bean resulted more yield and economic advantage than sole cropping of the component crops. Table 3: Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) and Monetary Advantage Index (MAI) of intercropped sorghum with soya bean. Treatments Grain yield (Kg ha-1) LER MAI Value/ha (Eth. Birr) Sorghum Soya bean Sole sorghum 3406.67 - - - 25550.025 Sole SB - 1840.13 - - 36802.60 1S:1SB 2755.47 1296.77 1.502 15575.18 46601.425 1S:2SB 2445.00 1011.63 1.267 8128.03 38570.10 4. Conclusion and Recommendation The statistical analysis of data revealed that non-significant variation was observed on plant height, panicle length, and thousand seed weight for sorghum and plant height, pod number per plant, seed number per pod and hundred seed weight for soya bean. Sole cropped soya bean had significantly higher growth and yield performance than intercropped bean. 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