Analysis Of Production Efficiency Of Maize-Based Cropping Systems

Cropping system refers to the temporal and spatial arrangement of different crops to exploit natural resources and enhance productivity per unit area and time (Gurigbal, 2010). The practice of cultivating two or more crops in the same space at the same time is common among smallholder farmers (Seran and Brintha, 2010). These intercropping systems mostly involves cereals and legumes (Ijoyah, 2012), particularly maize-soyabean, maize-cowpea, maize-groundnuts, millet-groundnuts and rice-pulses (Matusso et al, 2012). Several research works have been reported by scientists on cereal-legume intercropping (Egbe, 2010; Osman et al, 2011; Ijoyah, 2012) with intercropping successes as compared to monocropping. Intercropping system is known to make a more efficient use of growth factors as the crops capture and make a better use of radiant energy (Matusso et al, 2012) available water and nutrients.