The effect of intercropping maize with cowpea and lablab on crop yield

The effect of intercropping some forage legumes on biomass yield of legumes and grain yield of maize was determined in Raya azobo woreda weinlaem tabia using complete block design (RCBD). The legumes included lablab purperous and cowpea ( vigna unguculata ) and the treatments were sole maize, Maize-lablab, maize-cowpea, sole lablab and sole cowpea and 9 replications. The result indicated that intercrop forage legumes with maize significantly affected the growth and grain yield of maize (P<0.01) where the sole maize yielded the highest 3056 kg/ha and lower 2305 kg for maizecowpea integration. Plant height was significantly affected (P<0.01) among maize intercrops where the longest were Sole maize (220.25cm) and no significant different was observed between sole lablab, lablab –maize, cowpea and its intercrops the number of nodules was significantly higher for intercrops than mono crops however numbers of pods per plant were higher for sole crops than intercrops number of cobs and seeds per cob was higher P<0.05) for sole crops than other integrations. The higher LER was obtained from cowpea intercrops (1.71) and maize l-lablab (1.65) which indicates the intercropping of maize-cowpea and maize-lablab was advantageous than mono crop maize. The higher land equivalent ration and the higher net return of 17276ETB for maizecowpea and 15707 ETB from maize-lablab intercrops showed that intercropping maize with lablab and cowpea is recommended for Raya and others with similar agro ecology