Intercropping soybean and maize to silage: I- Capture and use of solar radiation and biomass production

DÍAZ, M. G., KUTTEL, W. D ., LÓPEZ, R., CAVIGLIA, O.,PELTZER

Beijing, China.

Congreso; World soybean Research Conference VIII; 2009

&amp;lt;!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --&amp;gt; Intercropping could be a useful tool, if proportion of crops is adequately balanced, to increase resource and land use efficiency and to improve silage quality. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of row proportions in intercrops of soybean and maize on capture of solar radiation and its use efficiency and on biomass production to be destined to silage confection. Soybean and maize were simultaneously sowed at 16 and 4 plants per lineal meter (0.52m apart), respectively, using genotypes A 7321 RG (MG VII, indeterminate) and DK Feed RR2 at Paraná, Argentina (31º50’S). Treatments, laid out in a complete block design with three replicates, were pure stands of maize (M-M-M-M) and soybean (S-S-S-S) and intercrops: 1x1(M-S-M-S), 2x2(M-M-S-S), 3x1(M-M-M-S) y 1x3 (M-S-S-S). At the harvesting time for silage, maize was in R4 and soybean in R5. Maximum interception of solar radiation (IR) differed among treatments (P<0.05), and ranged from 95% in S-S-S-S to 91% in M-M-M-M, with intermediate values for intercrops. Radiation use efficiency (RUE) differed among treatments and ranged from 1,94 g MJ-1 in S-S-S-S to 3.58 g MJ-1 in M-M-M-M, whereas M-M-M-S and M-M-S-S not differed of M-M-M-M. As a consequence of small differences in IR, total biomass was mainly related to RUE and ranged from 10620 in S-S-S-S to 19603 kg ha-1 in M-M-M-M. Intercropping including high maize proportion (>50%) could be match an elevated biomass production with an improved silage quality, as a result of the protein contribution of soybean.