Response of yield and yield components of wheat, barley and triticale to intercropping with legumes under weed interference

In order to investigate the response of cereals to intercropping with legume in weed competition conditions, a field experiment was performed in 2014-2015 in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Darab, Shiraz University. Treatments included 10 monoculture (wheat, barley, triticale, pea and bean with and without weeds) and 6 intercropping (wheat + chickpea, wheat + faba bean, barley + chickpea, barley + faba bean, triticale + chickpea and triticale + faba bean with Weeds) which laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Results showed that grain yield, biological yield and harvest index in most intercropping treatments was similar to those in weedy monoculture and even in some cases similar to those in weed-free monoculture treatments which it shows that intercropping had a higher efficiency. For instance, grain yield in barley+ chickpea intercropping (6241 kg ha-1) and barley+ faba bean (5333 kg ha-1) was not significantly different from weedy barley monoculture (7313 kg ha-1) and weed-free barley monoculture (7621 kg h-1). Partial LER of cereals, in intercropping treatments except wheat+faba bean (0.39) based on weedy monocultures, was greater than 0.5 and also except intercropping of triticale + chickpea (0.31) and wheat + faba bean (0.41) based on weed-free monocultures was more than 0.5. Barley had a greatest grain and biological yield over all the treatments which it was because of its superior competitive ability against weeds.