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Cotton-Based Intercropping Systems

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Cotton Production and Uses

Abstract

Coping with the threat of climate change and food security, crop productivity needs improvement. Low-price situation for cotton in some developing countries is discouraging cotton cultivation. Cotton-based intercropping offers a better solution to cope with the situation. The system of companion plantation of one crop with another during the same growing season on the same piece of land offers an option. The basic objective is to augment yields by multiplying the available growing area. Across other merits of intercropping, the biodiversity of growing crops attracts a variety of predatory insects making possible an integrated pest control of cotton. Intercropping may be classified into three types, viz., mixed cropping, which includes planting a variety of harmonious plants together; alley or row cropping, in which diverse crops are grown with each other in rows; or temporal intercropping, that is a system of the fast-growing crop with a slow growth. Due to a relatively longer duration with slow-growing habit during initial stages, cotton-based cropping system is ideally suitable for intercropping. The cotton-based intercropping aims to maximize the yield of cotton along with extra profits from intercrops. There is a wide range of crops including cereals, legumes, and vegetables, which are possible to grow with or in standing cotton crop. Each group offers versatile advantages in terms of yields of both companion crops and monetary returns of the system. However, there is a crop-wise variation in monetary advantages of diverse intercropping systems.

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Atique-ur-Rehman et al. (2020). Cotton-Based Intercropping Systems. In: Ahmad, S., Hasanuzzaman, M. (eds) Cotton Production and Uses. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1472-2_17

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