Abstract:
Intensive crop cultivation through inter-cropping is a reasonable agronomic practice to
fulfill and sustain food security in areas like Wondo Genet where there is shortage of
arable land. An experiment was conducted at Wondo Genet Agricultural Research Center
to determine the optimum planting density and row arrangement of basil for intercropping
with tomato and to examine yield advantage and economic return of the system. The
experiment was conducted with a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement in RCBD with three
replications each consisting of ten treatments: two basil row arrangement (one tomato
row alternating with one basil rows (1T:1B) or with two basil rows (1T:2B)) and four
basil population densities (66666, 50000, 33333 and 16666 plants ha -1
). Results of the
study indicated that cropping system significantly (p<0.05) affected yield and yield
components of tomato. Intercropped tomato with basil had the highest yield (36657.8 kg
ha-1
) as compared to sole cropped tomato (31004.3kg ha-1
) and intercropping with basil
increased its yield by 15.42%. On the other hand, row arrangement by planting density
interaction significantly influenced yield of basil with the maximum dry herbal (341.49 kg
ha-1
) and essential oil (22.86 kg ha-1
) yields recorded for 100% basil population density
with a 1T:2B row arrangement. Cropping system also significantly influenced essential oil
content and essential oil yield of basil. The highest essential oil content (1.26%) and
essential oil yield (21.83 kg ha-1
) of basil were obtained with sole planting, compared to
that of intercropping (0.96%) and (15.36 kg ha-1
)with tomato showing, showing 23.81%
and 29.64% reduction, respectively. In general, yields of tomato increased in
intercropped plots while basil yield was best when planted alone as compared to
intercropped with tomato. Additionally, intercropping of tomato with basil had total land
equivalent ratio (LER) value greater than one, which showed the advantage of
intercropping over sole cropping of each crop. Intercropping of tomato with basil at
100% population density gave total LER value of 1.9 and monetary advantage index
(MAI) value of 194600 ETB ha
-1
, respectively. Therefore, basil with a density of 33,333
plants ha-1
and intercropped with tomato with 1T:1B row arrangement could be
recommended for the target area. However, the effect of tomato-basil intercropping on the
incidence and severity of major tomato insects and diseases needs further study
