Journal of Crop Production and Processing

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Reduction of herbicide consumption is one of the goals of modern agriculture. Intercropping is an option to reduce growth and reproductive potential of weeds while maintaining agricultural system productivity. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of bean and maize intercropping on weed control, economical yield of system and land use efficiency. Experiment was done at the Research Station of Bu – Ali Sina University in 2010 growing season. A completely randomized block design with three replications was used. MWI, MWF, MP6, MP12 and MP18 were submitted to the five treatments: no weeding, weeding, and additive intercropping of 6, 12 and 18 plant of bean with pure stand of maize. The effects of experimental treatments were significant (p<0.01) for grain yield of maize (GYM) and total yield of system (TYS). Maximum GYS (803 g m-2) was revealed at MWF treatment, but the highest value of TYS (813 g m-2) without significant difference with MWF treatment, was observed at MP18 treatment. Also, the traits of ear length, number of seed/ear and weed density and biomass were affected significantly by experimental treatments. Since, with increasing bean density inter the maize field, ear length and number of seed/ear increased, but weed density and biomass decreased. The minimum values of weed density and biomass and the highest value of LER (1.05) belonged to the MP18 treatment. Hence, it can be concluded that with adding only 18 bean plant m-2 and without weeding neither economical yield of system nor land use efficiency increased.

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The chemical control of weeds raises serious concerns about food safety and environmental quality, which have necessitated the need for non chemical weed management techniques such as intercropping. Intercropping can suppress weeds and reduce the use of herbicides in production systems. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of intercropping of faba bean and maize, as well as hand-weeding on maize grain yield and total grain yield. The experiment was carried out during growing season of 2010 as a randomized complete block design with three replications at the Agricultural Research Station, Faculty of Agriculture, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran. Sole cropping of maize with weed control (MWF), sole cropping of maize without weed control (MWI), intercropping of 15% faba bean+maize (M+15%F), 30% faba bean+maize (M+30%F), 45% faba bean+maize (M+45%F)  and sole cropping of faba bean were the experimental treatments. Weed biomass and density were affected by treatments. With increasing faba bean density in the intercropping treatments, weed biomass and density decreased significantly from 85 plants and 310 g m^-2 for MWI treatment to 22 plants and 63 g m^-2 for M+45%F treatment, respectively. The greatest number of seed row per ear, seed number per ear and grain and biological yields (8033 and 17933 kg ha^-1, respectively) were achieved at MWF treatment and the smallest values for these attributes were revealed at MWI treatment. There was no significant difference between MWF and M+45%F treatments for total grain yield (i.e. grain yield of maize + faba bean). Sole cropping of faba bean led to the greatest yield components and grain and biological yields. With increasing faba bean density in intercropping treatments, above mentioned traits (except number of pods per plant) were increased significantly. The great values for weed control efficiency (73%) and total relative value (1.14) were achieved at M+45%F treatment. Results of this experiment indicated that additive intercropping of faba bean (especially with a high planting density) as a companion crop with maize may, potentially, lead to sufficient weed suppression concomitant to an acceptable level of grain yield.