A bean, corn and manioc polyculture cropping system, 2: A comparison between the yield and economic return from monoculture and polyculture cropping systems

Abstract

An experiment in which beans, maize, and cassava were planted in monoculture and polyculture systems was previously described in the first part of this report (Turrialba 25(3) 294-301 1975). The results of the experiment were used to compare the yield and economic benefit of three monocultures, in which each crop was planted separately, with those of three polycultures, in which the three crops were intercropped.

The yield and economic benefit of the polycultures were significantly higher than those of the monocultures. The net economic benefit of the succession polyculture, which had been designed as an analogue to the compartmentalization of leaf, stem, and root biomass during natural succession, was higher than that of the other two polycultures

Succession polyculture was evaluated by comparing it to a hypothetical monoculture rotational cropping system using the same three crops. Yield and net economic benefit were 37 and 54 percent higher, respectively, in succession polyculture than in the monoculture rotational cropping system.