/AnMtgsAbsts2009.55822 Corn Yield and Nutrition as Affected by Perennial Forage Grasses Intercropping in a No-till System.

Monday, November 2, 2009
Convention Center, Exhibit Hall BC, Second Floor

Carlos Costa Crusciol, Crop Science, São Paulo State Univ., College of Agricultural Science, Botucatu, SP, Brazil, Emerson Borghi, Bunge Fertilizers S.A., Porto Alegre, Brazil and Gustavo P. Mateus, Extreme West Regional Pole, APTA, Andradrina, SP, Brazil
Abstract:
One of the limitations in no-till system in tropical regions is low mulch persistence on soil surface because of tropical conditions. Crop-livestock integration by intercropping corn with perennial forage grasses can provide feed pasture for cattle in fall/winter and straw on the soil surface in spring to maintain no-till system. This research aimed to evaluate corn yield and nutrition as affected by Brachiaria brizantha and Panicum maximum intercropping in no-till system. To reach the proposed objectives, it was carried on three simultaneous studies, carriers on at field conditions, during the cropping years of 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2005/06 at Lageado Experimental Farm in Botucatu, State of São Paulo, Brazil, in a structured Oxisol cultivated under no-tillage system. The experimental design was in blocks completely randomized, with four replicates. The treatments were: 1) Single corn; 2) corn with B. brizantha cv. Marandu sowed in the same furrow; 3) corn with B. brizantha cv. Marandu intercropped at side-dressing nitrogen fertilization; 4) corn with P. maximum cv. Mombaça sowed in the same furrow; 5) corn with P. maximum cv. Mombaça intercropped at side-dressing nitrogen fertilization. The intercropping systems do not decreased the corn grains yield. Corn with P. maximum cv. Mombaça intercropped at side-dressing nitrogen fertilization provided the highest N and S concentration in leaves. Intercropping provided higher P and K concentrations in leaves than single corn.