Abstract:
An experiment was conducted on the performance of sunflower - bushbean
intercropping under different fertilizer levels and row arrangements at the Agronomy
Field, Sher-e Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207 during November, 2007 to
March. 2008. The trial was laid out in a randomized complete block design with
three replications. The treatment comprised of different row arrangement of both
crops under varying levels of fertilizer. At maturity, seeds were harvested, while at
vegetative stage, harvestable fresh pods of bushbean were considered as yield. Among
the intercropping patterns, the highest sunflower equivalent yields 3.317 t/ha and
2.584
t/ha were obtained with paired rows of sunflower followed by two rows of bushbean (2
2) under 120 % recommended dose of sunflower (T
7
) at both harvestable fresh pod and
maturity stages respectively. Highest land equivalent ratios 1.18 and 1 .1 01 were
obtained with the same treatment at both harvestable pod and maturity stages
respectively. The highest benefit-cost ratio and monetary advantages (1.691 and
Tk.16694.41/ha respectively) were obtained also with treatment T
7
when pods of
bushbean were harvested at marketable size. When crops were grown for seed production.
the highest benefit-cost ratio 1.394 was found from same row arrangement of sunflower
followed by one row of bushbean under recommended dose of sunflower (T
3
) and the
highest monetary advantages of Tk. 7826.32/ha from T
7
. So, bushbean may he
intercropped with sunflower using 120% recommended fertilizer dose of sunflower and
paired rows of sunflower followed by two rows of bushbean (2 2) at both harvestable
pod and maturity stage.
