Oil Palm Based Cropping Systems under Irrigated Conditions – Indian Scenario

Oil Palm is being grown as a small holder's crop in India under irrigated conditions. The availability of natural resources – soil space, air space and solar radiation in the oil palm gardens can be best utilized by growing a variety of crops in the interspaces. Since Oil Palm has a long juvenile phase of three years, during which period it occupies only a fraction of the land space, a number of annuals and biennials can be grown. Survey undertaken in oil palm plantations of Krishna and Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh revealed that about 81%, 35.2% and 9% space would be available for growing intercrops at the end of first, second and third years respectively. Another survey in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh during the juvenile phase inferred that banana and seed maize were the most profitable crops with an income of Rs. 25,000/-. Tobacco was the most popular crop of the area. In Karnataka, besides the cereals and pulses, flower crops like aster and marigold are highly remunerative during juvenile phase. Experiments at NRCOP in the juvenile oil palm plantations with intercrops like maize, chillies, tobacco, okra, ridge gourd and colocasia revealed that maize was the most profitable and compatible crop. In another cropping system trial at Navsari, banana was the more profitable compared to that of turmeric and spider Lilly. A survey of adult oil palm plantations (10–12 yrs old) with cocoa as intercrop revealed that the light available below the canopy ranged from 2 - 21 per cent of the above canopy radiation. The yields of cocoa (1–9 yrs old) varied between 0 to 0.4 kg per tree. The reason for low cocoa yield could be due the less availability of light as the light saturation of cocoa leaf takes place at 800 mmol.m⁻².s⁻¹.