Turning biennial into biannual harvest: Long ‐term assessment of Arabica coffee–macadamia intercropping and irrigation synergism by biological and economic indices

Intercropping Arabica coffee and macadamia improved productivity compared with monocrops; Arabica coffee –macadamia intercropping benefits were greater under rainfed than irrigated conditions; intercropping and irrigation have synergistic effects increasing economic results. AbstractIntercropping that involves coffee (Coffee arabica L.) and macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia Maiden& Betche) can achieve the complementarity between component crops aiming at better use of natural resources, hence resulting in optimum crop production. However, there is no detailed information in the scientific literature about the biological and economic efficiency of coffee –macadamia intercropping. In this work, we evaluated the productivity and economic performance of Arabica coffee–macadamia intercropping under rainfed and irrigated conditions for 13 years (2006–2018) in São Paulo state, southeastern Brazil. In addition, some biological, economic, and compet ition indices were used to understand the complementarity of companion crops under the intercropping system. Irrigation significantly increased coffee (21%–40%) and macadamia (33%–44%) yields. Despite the greater values of aggressivity and dominance indices of macadamia over coffee crop have bee n calculated in the rainfed regime, intercropping with macadamia reduced more strongly coffee yield under irrigation. The higher values of land equivalent ratio (LER), land equivalent coefficient (LEC), percentage yield difference (PY...
Source: Food and Energy Security - Category: Food Science Authors: Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Source Type: research