Agronomic and economic viability of intercropping onion and lettuce

• Autor(a) principal: Mota,Wagner F da
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Pereira,Rosimeire D, Santos,Gizeli de S, Vieira,Janiele Cássia B
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Horticultura Brasileira
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-05362012000200028
• topic: Lactuca sativa; Allium cepa; crop association; cropping systems; plant density

The study aimed to evaluate the agronomic and economic performance of intercropping onion and lettuce on four plant densities of each species. The experiment was set up in completely randomized blocks, with four replications and treatments arranged in a 4 x 4 factorial. Treatments resulted from a combination of four (100, 80, 60, and 40% of recommended plant densities in monoculture) plant densities for both lettuce and onion. Intercropping did not affect the agronomic performance of onion or lettuce. Higher plant densities (100% for both vegetables) resulted in higher lettuce and onion yields. The best economic results were observed using (a) onion at 80% of plant density combined with lettuce at 40 and 100% and (b) onion at 100% and lettuce at all densities (40 to 100%).