Abstract

One way to feed alertly increasing world population is through improving sustainable production and productivity per unit of land. Cereal/legume intercropping practice increase productivity and enhance land use efficiency. However, issue about identification of planting pattern and geometry of associated crop is highly important. Therefore, a field experiment was conducted during 2020 in Fincha valley to assess the response of maize crops to the inter-row arrangement and intra-spacing of intercropped sesame on yield, yield components, and productivity of the intercropping. The study was conducted using randomized complete block design combining four-row arrangements (1:1, 1:2, 2:1, 2:2) and three intra-spacing of intercropped sesame (10 cm, 15 cm, and 20 cm) with three replications. The main effect of row arrangement significantly influenced the number of kernels/cob and the harvest index of maize. The highest number of kernels/cob (491.5) and harvest index (35.31%) were obtained from the 2:1 row arrangement. A combination of intra-spacing of intercropped sesame 20 cm with 2:1 row arrangement resulted in the highest ear weight (265.8 g). A row arrangement 1:1 at 20 cm intra-spacing resulted in the highest above-ground biomass (24.21 t/ha) and grain yield of (8.39 t/ha). Maize under (2:1 x 15 cm) produced the highest thousand kernels weight (428.1 g). In system evaluation, the intercropping system gave a greater value of LER (1.11) indicating 11% land-use efficiency over sole cropping. Therefore, growing of maize with sesame at row arrangement of 1:1 in combination with 20 cm intra-spacing of sesame was recommended for the study area.