Productivity of sugarcane-based sequential intercropping system suitable for Central Telangana zone

A field study was conducted at Agricultural Research Station, Basanthpur, Telangana, India during 2015 and 2017 to determine the suitability and productivity of year-long intercropping with short duration summer crops followed by ginger in sugarcane. The summer vegetable crops viz., green gram, tomato, watermelon, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, ridge gourd and keera were intercropped along with sugarcane. Following the harvest of summer crops, ginger seedlings were transplanted during May on the raised beds. The results of the study revealed that intercropping sugarcane with early summer vegetable crops of 75 to 90 days duration viz., watermelon and gourds followed by ginger in sequence reported yield advantage of 25 to 85 t ha⁻¹ over sole sugarcane and proved to be a highly productive cropping system of sugarcane and best suitable for Central Telangana Agro-climatic Zone. The most profitable sequential intercropping for sugarcane followed the order-Sugarcane+bitter gourd-ginger (223.07 t ha⁻¹)>watermelon-ginger (220.05 t ha⁻¹)>ridge gourd-ginger (204.59 t ha⁻¹)>bottle gourd-ginger (183.78 t ha⁻¹)>keera-ginger (174.56 t ha⁻¹)>tomato-ginger (169.22 t ha⁻¹)>green gram-ginger (162.09 t ha⁻¹). Under adequate irrigation facility, a yearlong sequence intercropping in sugarcane with short duration crops during the initial four months followed by a long duration intercrop that comes up well under partial shade conditions can sustain sugarcane cropping system with intermittent income and no adverse effect on the main crop yield.