Performance of Mustard Crop Under Citrus Based Agroforestry Systems in Vidarbha Region of Maharashtra

Traditional agroforestry is very common in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra with forest tree crops. Now fruit tree crops are also introduced to increase the farmer's income. Hence, the experiment was conducted at AICRP on Agroforestry research farm at College of Agriculture, Nagpur under citrus based agroforestry systems. The citrus fruit trees were planted at 6 × 6 m and forest species including Tectona grandis, Eucalyptus teretocornis and Ailanthus excelsa at equilateral distance of 3 meter in each treatment between two mandarin trees, where, Mustard crop (Brassica juncea var. Pusa bold) was cultivated as traditional agri-horti-silviculture system during 2020-21. The growth performance and yield of Mustard under different set of treatments viz. T₁ (Sole mustard ), T₂ (Sole mandarine + mustard ), T₃ (Mandarin + Tectona grandis + mustard), T₄ (Mandarin + Eucalyptus teretocornis + mustard ) and T₅ (Mandarin + Ailanthus excelsa + mustard) was recorded. The growth parameter and yield of mustard crop was found maximum in open field crop (Sole Mustard ) than the treatment under citrus based agroforestry systems and it was 25.57, 56.35, 44.00 and 63.12 per cent higher as compared to treatment T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅, respectively. The grain and straw yield of mustard was 5.75 and 11.90 q ha^-1 in crop of open field (Sole mustard). As regard the soil fertility, themost important parameter i.e., the organic carbon was significantly increased in sole cropping (0.57), sole Mandarin (0.53) and Mandarin + Ailanthus excelsa (0.48). Whereas, it decreased under Mandarin + Tectona grandis (0.48) and Mandarin + Eucalyptus tereticornis (0.44) after the harvesting of rabi mustard crop.