Role of agroforestry in biomass production and soil moisture conservation in fruit based agrisilvihorticultural systems with legume intercrops in Odisha

Abstract

This paper presents an experiment conducted at the experimental site of All India Co-Ordinated Research Project on Agroforestry, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, during July 2016 - January 2017 to determine the biomass and soil moisture content in fruit based agroforestry systems. The experiment was consisted of 16 treatment combinations including 12 agrisilvihorticultural systems comprised of combination of three fruit species such as mango, jack fruit & cashew and four legume crops i.e. arhar, groundnut, blackgram & cowpea and four sole crops. It was evident that among the fruit trees higher soil moisture was recorded with mango followed by jackfruit and cashewnut irrespective of the associated intercrops throughout the cropping season. The highest biomass of (7.66 t ha-1) was recorded with cashewnut in cashewnut + blackgram system followed by jackfruit under jackfruit + groundnut system (7.06 t ha-1) at 12 months respectively. The highest biomass of (11.79 t ha-1) was recorded with jackfruit in jackfruit + blackgram system followed by cashewnut in cashewnut + blackgram systems of (11.33 t ha-1) at 18 months respectively.