LTR and Yield Advantages of Pigeonpea at Different Cropping Geometry Under Intercropped Situation

A field experiment was conducted at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, during kharif 2011 to optimize the spacing for long duration pigeonpea at different planting geometry and row proportions under intercropped and irrigated situation. The treatments comprised of planting geometry (row spacing of 90, 120, 150 and 180 cm at varied level of plant to plant spacing with 30, 45, and 60 cm) and different row proportions of pigeonpea + greengram (1:2, 1:3, 1:4 and 1:5) The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications. The results indicated that the plant height (192.3 cm), dry matter production (6342 kg ha⁻¹), branches/plant (23.2) and stem girth (7.9) of pigeonpea increased significantly with wider spacing of 120 x 30 cm with 1:3 row proportion along with the lowest light transmission ratio of 12.2. Linear increase in growth parameters lead to higher yield of pigeonpea.