PERFORMANCE OF SUNFLOWER UNDER MORINGA BASED AGROFORESTRY SYSTEM

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to performance of sunflower under moringa based agroforestry system as well as to find out the best tree crop interactions in the Agroforestry Field under the Department of Agroforestry and Environmental Science, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, during the period from December 2020 to March 2021. Four treatments, D 1 =50 cm distance from the tree base, D 2 =100 cm distance from the tree base, D 3 =150 cm distance from the tree base, D 4 =Open field referred to as control were used in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The observations pertaining to growth and yield attributes of moringa recorded during the course of investigation were statistically analyzed and significance of results was verified. All the growth and yield contributing characters like plant height, leaf length, leaf breadth, number of internode plant -1 , internode length, fresh weight of shoot (g), fresh weight of root (g), dry weight of shoot (g), dry weight of root (g), number of seed plant -1 , weight of seed plant -1 (g), and yield per hectare varied significantly due to distance. Among the intercropping patterns, the highest sunflower equivalent yields 3.17 t/ha and 2.97 t/ha were obtained with open field referred to as control followed by 150 cm distance from the tree base. The benefit cost ratio was different in all the treatments. The highest benefit cost ratio (4.27) was found from the treatment 150 cm distance from the tree base. The lowest benefit cost ratio (1.15) was found from control.