Land equivalent coefficient when intercropping some varieties of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) with pea (Pisum sativum L.) in two sites Qandulah and ALBaida-Libya

Abstract

Cereal-legume intercrop plays an important role in food production worldwide. The production varieties (Triticum aestivum L.) can be improved when intercrop with (Pisum sativum L.). The aim of this study was to clarify the effect of planting wheat-pea on the production three varieties T.aestivum and land equivalent coefficient. This study was conducted in two sites, Qandulah and ALBaida in Al- Jabal Al-Akhdar Libya, during the growth season 2017/2018. The experiment was conducted by randomized complete blocks design with three replicates and two factors, the first factor was sole and intercrop wheat-pea 50:50, the second factor was variation, wheat varieties TR, TUS and SERI and pea variety PS1100. Intercropping wheat with peas showed an increase in grain yield in the variety of TR with 1.903 t ha¹, while, there was no increase in variety SERI as it gave a grain yield of 0.611 t ha¹ and 1.568 t ha¹ to sole. The highest grain yield obtained by wheat variety SERI was 1.212 t ha¹ in Qandulah, and 0.330 t ha in ALBaida, whereas, an increased grain yield by 72.7% was in Qandulah compared to ALBaida, followed by wheat variety TUS which was 1.165 and 0.310 t ha in Qandulah and ALBaida, respectively, which was greater in Qandulah than ALBaida by 73.4%. However, low productivity of wheat and pea in ALBaida site was due to low N content, high levels of saline of sodium and potassium, also, high content of iron and phosphorus with high soil oxides. Based on a Russian classification study, soils of ALBaida were siallitic cinnamon typical carbonate loamy texture, whereas soils of Qandulah were dark carbonate rendzinas, clay texture. Seed yield of sole pea gave 0.763 t ha compared to the intercrop that gave 0.592 t ha¹, as the intercrop has increased the yield of wheat varieties in Qandulah. The low yield of pea variety PSI100 under rain conditions was recorded in ALBaida. Higher values of yield production were also resulted in Qandulah. In Qandulah, the highest of protein content of the wheat variety TR and SERI were 14.205 and 13.765%, respectively. In ALBaida the highest protein content of the wheat variety SER1 and TUS were 14.177 and 13.797%, respectively. Protein content was significantly increased in pea variety PSI100 by 21.633% compared with wheat varieties. The results of this study indicated that higher Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) was wheat variety TR 2.028 in Qandulah and wheat variety TUS was 1.577 when intercrop a wheat-pea by 50:50 in ALBaida, while wheat variety SERI showed no feasibility of intercropping in ALBaida, because the value LER reached 0.290 and because of aggressive. Not conduct a test combined analysis of variance, if there are significant differences, there is a heterogeneity between the two sites