Effect of population density of lettuce intercropped with rocket on productivity and land-use efficiency

PLoS One. 2018 Apr 26;13(4):e0194756. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194756. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of the spacing of lettuce rows on the production of a lettuce-rocket intercropping system over two growing seasons (11 August to 25 September 2011 and 12 January to 24 February 2012) in Jaboticabal, São Paulo, Brazil. We evaluated 11 treatments in each season: lettuce-rocket intercrops with five row spacings for the lettuce (0.20, 0.25, 0.30, 0.35 and 0.40 m) and the rocket planted midway between the lettuce rows, sole crops of lettuce at the same five row spacings and a sole crop of rocket. Fresh and dry masses of the lettuce and rocket and number of lettuce leaves per plant were highest with a lettuce row spacing of 0.40 m, but the productivities of the lettuce and rocket were higher with a lettuce row spacing of 0.20 m. The productivities and fresh and dry weights of the lettuce and rocket and the number of lettuce leaves per plant were highest in the sole crops, but the fresh and dry weights of the rocket were higher with intercropping. The land equivalent ratios were >1.0 in both seasons in all intercrops and were highest for the densest crop (1.41). Intercropping was therefore 41% more efficient than sole cropping for the production of lettuce and rocket.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biomass*
  • Crop Production
  • Crops, Agricultural
  • Lactuca / growth & development*
  • Plant Leaves / growth & development
  • Seasons

Grants and funding

This research was financially supporting by FAPESP—Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, by granting scholarship to the first author, Camila Seno Nascimento (award number 2011/10784-3). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.