Turning biennial into biannual harvest: Long- term assessment of Arabica coffee– macadamia intercropping and irrigation synergism by biological and economic indices
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Date
2022-01
Authors
Soratto, Rogério P.
Perdoná, Marcos J.
Parecido, Renan J.
Pinotti, Raquel N.
Gitari, Harun I.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Abstract
Intercropping that involves coffee (Coffee arabica L.) and macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia Maiden & Betche) can achieve the complementarity between component crops aiming at better use of natural resources, hence resulting in optimum crop production. However, there is no detailed information in the scientific literature about the biological and economic efficiency of coffee– macadamia intercropping. In this work, we evaluated the productivity and economic performance of Arabica coffee– macadamia intercropping under rainfed and irrigated conditions for 13 years (2006– 2018) in São Paulo state, southeastern Brazil. In addition, some biological, economic, and competition indices were used to understand the complementarity of companion crops under the intercropping system. Irrigation significantly increased coffee (21%– 40%) and macadamia (33%– 44%) yields. Despite the greater values of aggressivity and dominance indices of macadamia over coffee crop have been calculated in the rainfed regime, intercropping with macadamia reduced more strongly coffee yield under irrigation. The higher values of land equivalent ratio (LER), land equivalent coefficient (LEC), percentage yield difference (PYD), income equivalent ratio (IER), and relative net return index (RNRI) indicated relatively higher benefits of intercropping under rainfed regime than under irrigation. The intercropping systems were more productive than monocrops, reaching 215% more yield, 3.2- fold more gross income under rainfed conditions. The synergy of the combined use of irrigation and intercropping technologies decreased the payback period and the highest values of coffee equivalent yield (CEY) and monetary advantage index (MAI) under irrigation indicated a cumulative effect on the profitability. Here, for the first time, we demonstrated the complementarity between Arabica coffee and macadamia under the intercropping system, at least up to 13 years after planting of the crops, and suggest that it may be a viable option to optimize the use of resources, food
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1 | INTRODUCTION The human population growth that is currently witnessed globally calls for an increase in food production. Given that the availability of arable land and water for irrigation has been decreasing steadily, there is a need to search for solutions that allow greater productivity per unit of area and water (Gitari et al., 2019; Gomes et al., 2007; Perdoná & Soratto, 2015b). Thus, making cropping systems more efficient to increase food security has been a challenging need. The use of irrigation has increased the yield of Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica L.) in several coffee- producing regions of Brazil (Alves et al., 2000; Arruda & Grande, 2003; Gomes et al., 2007; Lima et al., 2008; Perdoná & Soratto, 2015b; Silva et al., 2008). However, even being more productive under irrigation, mature coffee monocrops have a biennial production pattern, because fruit overbearing exhausts the tree's reserves and limits the growth of new productive branches and leaves, leading to low fruiting the next year (Arruda & Grande, 2003; DaMatta, 2004; Gomes et al., 2007; Lima et al., 2008; Perdoná et al., 2012). Under intercropping, crops can achieve a more effective complementarity in the use of environmental resources such as land (Gitari et al., 2020; Maitra et al., 2020; Mead & Willey, 1980), nutrients (Gao et al., 2014; Mei et al., 2012), water (Meixiu et al., 2020; Ren et al., 2016; Rezig et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2015, 2020), and light (Raza et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2015), especially when there is a temporal and spatial exploration of these resources (Brooker et al., 2014; Dong et al., 2018; Duchene et al., 2017; Glaze- Corcoran et al., 2020; Nyawade et al., 2020; Raza et al., 2021; Rigal et al., 2020; Rigal et al., 2020). Although several studies have found a reduction in coffee yield when grown under intercropping with trees (Araújo et al., 2016; Rigal, Xu, Hu, et al., 2020; Rigal, Xu, & Vaast, 2020; Snoeck et al., 2013; Steiman et al., 2011), recent research has demonstrated that depending on the companion tree species used and their spatial arrangement, intercropping of the Arabica coffee can be quite efficient (Perdoná & Soratto, 2015b, 2016, 2020; Rigal, Xu, Hu, et al., 2020). For instance, intercropping of coffee (C. arabica L. or C. canephora Pierre) with macadamia (Macadamia integriolia Maiden & Betche) has been shown to result in not only improved environmental conditions but also an increase
in the yields of both coffee and macadamia nuts in initial years (the first five harvests) (Perdoná & Soratto, 2015a, 2016; Perdoná et al., 2015; Pezzopane et al., 2010). This provides higher profitability and quicker return on investment when compared to coffee monocrop, both in rainfed and irrigated conditions (Perdoná & Soratto, 2015b), hence increasing the efficiency of land and water use in the initial phase of intercropping (Perdoná, Soratto, et al., 2015). Under such situations, the best economic returns were obtained with the integrated use of coffee– macadamia intercropping and irrigation (Perdoná & Soratto, 2015a,b, 2016). However, there is no information on how intercropping affects coffee yields and the efficiency of this intercropping at the stage when macadamia plants are already mature. A series of indices have been used to ease the understanding of the comparison between intercropping and monoculture systems (Glaze- Corcoran et al., 2020), as listed in Table 1. As intercropping systems involve more than one crop, often with different sale prices and production costs, with some of these indices it is possible to assess biological and economic efficiencies of such system (Adetiloye et al., 1983; Afe & Atanda, 2015; Alabi & Esobhawan, 2006; Devasenapathy, 2008; Ghosh, 2004; Gitari et al., 2020; Machiani et al., 2018; Mead & Willey, 1980; Moseley, 1994; Willey, 1979). In addition, other indices are useful tools that are used to assess the competitive effect of crops under the intercropping system (Banik, 1996; Dhima et al., 2007; Ghosh, 2004; Gitari et al., 2020; Machiani et al., 2018; Willey & Rao, 1980). According to Mead and Willey (1980), problems may occur in any attempt to interpret intercropping advantages by a single index; therefore, different aspects of intercropping data should perhaps be interpreted by different indices (Adetiloye et al., 1983; Gitari et al., 2020; Glaze- Corcoran et al., 2020). However, there is no information in the scientific literature on the application of these indices to assess the efficiency of coffee– macadamia intercropping, especially considering different water regimes and long- term intercropping. In this context, it was hypothesized that Arabica coffee and macadamia trees would be complementary in the use of environmental resources, making their intercropping suitable even during adulthood of macadamia trees, but its productive and economic efficiencies could vary with
production, and ecosystem services, making agricultural profitability more sustainable and stable.
Description
Article in Food and Energy Security
Keywords
Coffee Arabica, competition indices, crop yield, intercropping indices, Macadamia integrifolia
Citation
Soratto, R. P., Perdoná, M. J., Parecido, R. J., Pinotti, R. N., & Gitari, H. I. (2022). Turning biennial into biannual harvest: Long-term assessment of Arabica coffee–macadamia intercropping and irrigation synergism by biological and economic indices. Food and Energy Security, 00, e365. https://doi.org/10.1002/fes3.365