: India is one of the major cotton producing country in the world. Production of cotton increased after the introduction of transgenic Bt cotton. The area under cotton is increasing in India. Indian textile industry rapidly moving upward. Therefore, experiment is conducted to study the growth pattern of cotton. A field experiment was conducted at Anand Agricultural University, Anand, Gujarat to study the effect of crop geometry in cotton based cropping system during kharif seasons of the years 2020 and 2021. Eight different planting pattern and intercropping system were studied under randomized block design (RBD) with four replications. Periodical examination of data shows that conventional planting of cotton recorded significantly higher dry matter accumulation due to better availability of the resources and less competition compared to the treatments with intercrops and paired planting. Dry matter accumulation directly responsible for growth rate but has no or slight significant effect on crop growth rate, absolute growth rate and relative growth rate.

Cotton, Crop growth rate, Absolute growth rate, Relative growth rate

The results of this investigation shows that growth behaviour of cotton under Bt cotton+legume intercropping system with green gram and groundnut as intercrops played important role in the growth of plant. Involvement of legumes in cotton is not affecting growth of cotton. These unaffected growth rates had significant positive impact on seed cotton yield. This is relevant considering the need for crop diversification in the Bt cotton to minimize the risk associated with sole transgenic cotton.

P.M. Parmar, J.C. Shroff, N.N. Chaudhary and S.N. Shah (2023). Growth Behavior of Bt-cotton under Legume Intercropping with Paired Planting of Cotton. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(11): 275-279.