A field experiment was conducted in the Regional Research Transfer & Technology Station at Semiliguda under rainfed condition during 2019 & 2020. The soil of the experimental site was sandy clay loam with pH 5.06, organic carbon 5.03 g/kg, available N 372 kg/ha, P 33.2 kg/ha and K 313.0 kg/ha. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with twelve treatments and four replications. The treatments were, finger millet(sole), little millet (sole), redgram (sole), blackgram (sole), fingermillet - horsegram, little millet- horsegram, fingermillet + redgram (4:2), littlemillet + redgram(4:2), finger millet + black gram(4:3), little millet + black gram(4:3), finger millet + black gram (4:3) -horsegram, little millet + black gram(4:3)-horsegram. Highest FMEY was recorded under little millet + Blackgram (4:3)-horsegram system (3153 kg/ha) followed by little millet – horsegram system (2842kg /ha), which is at par, but significantly higher than all other. FM + BG (T7) recorded significantly higher mean land equivalent ratio (LER, 1.35). The highest total RCC was in finger millet + red gram intercropping (4.54). Competition ratio (CR) of cereals and legumes maintained an inverse relationship. Among red gram intercropping system partial aggressivity (A) value of red gram and main crops are positive. But among black gram intercropping system partial aggressivity (A) value of black gram was positive and value of finger millet was negative. Maximum land use efficiency (LUE) of 46.58% was estimated in three systems, FM + RG (T7), LM + RG (T8) and sole RG (T3). The highest energy input was recorded to be 11.7 GJ/ha in FM + BG –HG system (T11) followed by 9.19 GJ/ha in LM+ BG – HG system (T12). The highest total energy output was 46.6GJ/ha in LM+BG-HG (T12 ). Maximum nutrient use efficiency (NUE) was estimated in sole little millet system (T2, 45.33 kg). Higher energy output, net energy, energy efficiency was noticed in LM + BG – HG system (T12), which was due to higher system yield and gross return of the system

Intercropping, FMEY, Energetics, land equivalent ratio (LER), RCC, Agressivity, competitive ratio (CR)

Thus, the study concluded that due to complementary relation of LM and BG intercropping system, when horse gram taken in sequence, resulting in higher yield of the component crops in the system. Inclusion of legumes like black gram as intercrop or horse gram as sequence crop with LM and FM has additive effect over the yield of base crop as well as succeeding crop. LM + BG - HG system (T12) recorded highest FMEY (3144kg/ha), The total LER was more than one in all the intercropping systems. When the LER is more than one, it indicates the greater biological efficiency of intercropping system. RCC values of all component crops except red gram in little millet+ red gram inter cropping system were greater than one which indicated that all component crops and inter crops gave more yield than expected except red gram crop in little millet + red gram inter cropping system. LUE was recorded to be highest in red gram based systems (46.58 %) because red gram crop occupied the land for maximum period (170 days). Higher nutrient use efficiency was estimated in LM based system than FM based system due to addition of less nutrient in intercropping system, mutualism and complementary relationships between the intercrops which improve the main crop's yield characteristics with improved space utilisation, effective use of sunlight, nutrient and water. The highest total net energy was estimated in LM + BG - HG (37.4 GJ/ha in T12). These results imply that it was more economically viable to take sequence crop horse gram after little millet and black gram inter cropping in rainfed farming system

Sunita Dandasena, Sabyasachi Biswal, Monika Ray, Ansuman Nayak, Meenakhi Prusty and Rasmirekha Pattnaik (2023). Competition Indices and Energetics of Rain fed Millet based Cropping System. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(11): 652-657