Soil Physicochemical Characteristics and Land Use Efficiency in Cereal-Legume Intercropping Systems

In order to evaluate the effects of different planting patterns on some soil physicochemical properties, an experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Research Station, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Bu-Ali Sina, during the 2010 growing season. The experiment was conducted as randomized complete blocks design with three replications. The experimental treatments were plantation of sole crop of chick-pea (P1), sole crop of barley (P2), and intercropping patterns of 100% chick-pea + 100% barley (P3), 100% chick-pea + 75% barley (P4), 100% chick-pea + 50% barley (P5), 100% chick-pea + 25% barley (P6), 25% chick-pea + 75% barley, (P7), 50% chick-pea + 50% barley (P8), 75% chick-pea + 25% barley (P9) and control treatment or non-planting (P10). Soil traits including pH, EC, bulk density, organic matter, total nitrogen, soil’s stable aggregate percentage along with the land use efficiency (LUE) and total yield of the system were evaluated. Results indicated that all of the traits were significantly affected by the experimental treatments. The maximum water stable aggregate (3.45%) belonged to P5 treatment which was about 70% more than the control treatment (non-planting treatment). The maximum organic matter (2.50%) and total nitrogen (0.44%) were achieved at P5 and P1 treatments, respectively. The P3 treatment had the highest total yield and significant differences with the P1 (sole cropping of chick-pea) and P2 (sole cropping of barley) treatments. In addition, at all intercropping treatments the LUE index was >1 and the P3 treatment had the highest value of LUE. In general, the additive intercropping of 50% barley + 100% chick-pea improved the soil physicochemical properties and increased the LUE value.