Agronomic Performance of Collards under Two Intercrops and Varying Nitrogen Application Levels as Assessed Using Land Equivalent Ratios

Sustainable utilization of the limited land parcels is an important element in resource poor countries whosepopulations depend on agriculture for sustenance. In East Africa, collard vegetable production has been a venturefor many small-scale farmers. Since no approaches are possible in expanding the land resource, improved cropproduction techniques and management promise better yields. We report a potential and sustainable approach forcollard production. We compared the productivity of growing collards in an intercrop with chilli or spring onions,and varying nitrogen levels in each cropping system in terms of land equivalent ratios (LER). Our two - seasondata show that farmers can obtain higher yield in a unit of land when they intercrop collards with spring onionsas indicated by a LER of 1.06, and that growing collards in an intercrop with Chilli leads to a 14% wastage ofland resource compared to growing the crop as a monoculture. Further, we reveal that application of nitrogenousfertilizer might lead to increase in yield but it does not have a statistically significant benefit on the land resourceuse.There were no statistically significant relationship between the yield of collards and their heights in all croppingsystems, but a non-significant(r=-0.29, p=0.164) decline of yield was observed under collard + chilli intercrop.The number of collard leaves was significantly negatively correlated (r=- 0.456, p=0.0249) with yield LER undercollard + chilli intercrop but it did not influence the LER under collard + spring onion intercrop. These findingsdemonstrate the need for proper resource application, and that collard + spring onion intercrop has a potential toimprove collard yield per unit piece of cultivated land without a need for increasing the rate of nitrogenousfertilizer application.