Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather

Intercropping in small-holder production systems in East and Central Africa is very common and offers potential for significant yield and environmental benefits. However, the reduced light availability under banana canopies constrains the success of the intercrop in banana systems. Determining a bal...

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Autores principales: Blomme, Guy, Ntamwira, Jules Bagula, Kearsley, Elizabeth, Bahati, Liliane, Amini, Daniel, Safari, Nancy, Ocimati, Walter
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Frontiers Media 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/110376
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author Blomme, Guy
Ntamwira, Jules Bagula
Kearsley, Elizabeth
Bahati, Liliane
Amini, Daniel
Safari, Nancy
Ocimati, Walter
author_browse Amini, Daniel
Bahati, Liliane
Blomme, Guy
Kearsley, Elizabeth
Ntamwira, Jules Bagula
Ocimati, Walter
Safari, Nancy
author_facet Blomme, Guy
Ntamwira, Jules Bagula
Kearsley, Elizabeth
Bahati, Liliane
Amini, Daniel
Safari, Nancy
Ocimati, Walter
author_sort Blomme, Guy
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Intercropping in small-holder production systems in East and Central Africa is very common and offers potential for significant yield and environmental benefits. However, the reduced light availability under banana canopies constrains the success of the intercrop in banana systems. Determining a balance between the optimal spacing/densities of banana plants with optimized intercrop selection based on their sensitivity and tolerance to shade is imperative. This study, through extensive field experiments performed in South Kivu, DR Congo investigated the resilience of a wide range of food and forage crops to varying banana shade levels. The same crop species grown as monocrops served as controls. Quantitative yield assessments showed yam, sweet potato, ginger and forage grasses to have a good potential to grow under moderately dense to dense banana fields. Taro, soybean, mucuna, chili, eggplant, and Crotalaria sp. performed well in sparsely spaced banana fields with moderate shading. Cassava and soybean showed limited tolerance to shade. Intercropping in banana systems is also generally confined to the rainy seasons due to the high sensitivity of most annual intercrops to long dry weather in the dry season months. We also thus assessed the sensitivity of chickpea and mucuna to the long dry weather of the dry seasons and found them to have great potential for extending farming production into the dry season. Overall, we show that careful selection and allocation of crops with varying sensitivity to various banana shade levels and dry season weather can potentially increase whole field productivity.
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spelling CGSpace1103762025-11-12T05:48:03Z Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather Blomme, Guy Ntamwira, Jules Bagula Kearsley, Elizabeth Bahati, Liliane Amini, Daniel Safari, Nancy Ocimati, Walter bananas biomass cover plants shade tolerance mucuna banano biomasa plantas de cobertura Intercropping in small-holder production systems in East and Central Africa is very common and offers potential for significant yield and environmental benefits. However, the reduced light availability under banana canopies constrains the success of the intercrop in banana systems. Determining a balance between the optimal spacing/densities of banana plants with optimized intercrop selection based on their sensitivity and tolerance to shade is imperative. This study, through extensive field experiments performed in South Kivu, DR Congo investigated the resilience of a wide range of food and forage crops to varying banana shade levels. The same crop species grown as monocrops served as controls. Quantitative yield assessments showed yam, sweet potato, ginger and forage grasses to have a good potential to grow under moderately dense to dense banana fields. Taro, soybean, mucuna, chili, eggplant, and Crotalaria sp. performed well in sparsely spaced banana fields with moderate shading. Cassava and soybean showed limited tolerance to shade. Intercropping in banana systems is also generally confined to the rainy seasons due to the high sensitivity of most annual intercrops to long dry weather in the dry season months. We also thus assessed the sensitivity of chickpea and mucuna to the long dry weather of the dry seasons and found them to have great potential for extending farming production into the dry season. Overall, we show that careful selection and allocation of crops with varying sensitivity to various banana shade levels and dry season weather can potentially increase whole field productivity. 2020-12 2020-12-03T08:55:34Z 2020-12-03T08:55:34Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/110376 en Open Access application/pdf Frontiers Media Blomme, G.; Ntamwira, J.; Kearsley, E.; Bahati, L.; Amini, D.; Safari, N.; Ocimati, W. (2020) Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 4: 545926 ISSN: 2571-581X
spellingShingle bananas
biomass
cover plants
shade tolerance
mucuna
banano
biomasa
plantas de cobertura
Blomme, Guy
Ntamwira, Jules Bagula
Kearsley, Elizabeth
Bahati, Liliane
Amini, Daniel
Safari, Nancy
Ocimati, Walter
Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather
title Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather
title_full Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather
title_fullStr Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather
title_full_unstemmed Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather
title_short Sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather
title_sort sensitivity and tolerance of different annual crops to different levels of banana shade and dry season weather
topic bananas
biomass
cover plants
shade tolerance
mucuna
banano
biomasa
plantas de cobertura
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/110376
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