Effect of alley plants species and plantain cultivars on yield of ita 331 upland rice in Umudike southern Nigeria

Abstract

Alley cropping or hedgerow intercropping is one of the many sub-systems of agroforestry technology. A 5 x 3 factorial experiment in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications was used to determine the effect of four alley woody species and three plantain cultivars on the yield of ITA 331 upland rice grain in the 2017 and 2018 farming seasons. The Alley species, plantain  cultivars and Alley species x plantain cultivars treatment interactions showed no significant effects (p>0.05) on ITA 331 upland rice grain yield. Student t-test on the two farming seasons showed significant increase in yield of ITA 331 upland rice grain in 2018 than in 2017. The non-significantly different rice grain yield in the alley species treatment plots could be due to the generally high nutrient release of the decomposed legume-based alley species. Agroforestry combination of alley plants species and plantain cultivars is suitable for ITA 331 upland rice production.

Key words: alley cropping, yield, ITA 331 upland rice grain, alley woody species, plantain cultivars