 หัวเรื่อง:ไม่มีชื่อไทย (ชื่ออังกฤษ : Intercropping Cauliflower Under Maize: An Approach to Extend the Cauliflower Production Season for Subsistence Farmers) ผู้เขียน: P. P. Khatiwada สื่อสิ่งพิมพ์:pdf AbstractIntercropping of potato and maize is the predominant cropping pattern in the high hills (1700- 2200 m asl) of eastern Nepal and covers about 63% of the total cultivated land in the high hills. Potato and maize are staple food crops of the high hills and baton great significance for the livelihood of subsistence high hill farmers. Potato also serves as a cash generating crop and maize by-products (stover, husk, etc.) are important animal feeds, which are fed to the animals during fodder is scarce (February-May). These factors cannot be ignored in such a complex hill fanning system, which has been developed overtime in close association with agriculture, livestock and forestry. Unfortunately, many technologies have been generated in isolation without considering the existing cropping patterns and have not helped resource-poor farmers who have small size land holdings often comprised of marginal lands. Small land holdings (0.5 ha/ household) and high population growth rate (2.6% per annum) have forced hill farmers to increase crop productivity. Intercropping which gives a combined yield higher than that of sole cropping (legumes with cereals), has been practised by farmers for generations. Past studies have shown that the cauliflower production season can be expanded to a period of ten months by utilising the geographical advantages of the high hills to supply cauliflower to urban dwellers mainly during the summer season. This expansion of the production season was found lucrative to farmers due to the 2-3 times higher market price available than that of the normal season. It was realised that farm level cash income could be raised if cauliflower is inserted into the existing potato+maize cropping system after the harvest of potato. With this realisation, an experiment was conducted at Dhankuta district of eastern Nepal (2200 m asl) in 1996/97 using six treatments, of which four were different plant populations of cauliflower (25974, 30769, 37037 and 40000 plants/ha) under a maize plant population of 40000 along with sole maize and cauliflower treatments. Single component yield analysis (ANOVA) failed to show any yield differences between the intercropping and crop situation. An average yield of 7.0 t/ha cauliflower can be produced after 21.1 t/ha potato and 2.1 t/ha maize from the same piece of land within a year. The experiment showed that farmers can obtain NRs 73,720.00 (US $ 1084.00) net profit from one ha of land by intercropping cauliflower without losing their staple foods.This study has further indicated that the choice of crop variety and their time of planting is most crucial to maximise the production of the combined crops. |