Competition and dry matter yield in intercrops of barley and legume for forage

For increasing land use efficiency intercropping plays a pivotal role. Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), vetch (Viciavillosa), and grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) monocultures as well as mixtures of barley with each of the abovelegumes, in three seeding ratios (i.e., barley: legume 75:25, 50:50 and 25:75, based on seed numbers) were used toinvestigated forage yield and competition indices such as land equivalent ratio (LER),competitive ratio (CR), relativecrowding coefficient (RCC), aggressivity (A), actual yield loss (AYL), monetary advantage index (MAI) andintercropping advantage (IA).The experimental was arranged asa randomized complete block design (RCBD) withthree replications.The results showed that intercropping reduced the dry matter yield of the three component plants,compared with their respective monocrops. The greatest value of total dry matter yield was obtained from barley25-grass pea75 (5.44 t ha-1) mixture, followed by grass pea sole crop (4.99 t ha-1). The total AYL values were positive andgreater than 0 in all mixtures, indicating an advantage from intercropping over sole crops. Intercropped barley had ahigher relative crowding coefficient (K=1.64) than intercropped legumes (K=1.20), indicating that barley was morecompetitive than legumes in mixtures. Furthermore, grass pea was more competitive than vetch in mixtures withbarley. The highest LER, SPI and MAI were obtained when barley was mixed at a rate of 25% with 75% seed rate ofgrass pea. It is concluded that intercropping of barley with grass pea has a good potential to improve the performance offorage with high land-use efficiency.