EVALUATION OF BRINJAL PRODUCTION INFLUENCED BY TREE CANOPIES UNDER LITCHI BASED AGROFORESTRY SYSTEM

Abstract

Brinjal is considered as one of the most important, popular and nutritious vegetable in the world as well as in Bangladesh. However, the production of this crop is low in Bangladesh as per the demand. We can increase it's production by bringing more cultivable land horizontally for brinjal cultivation. But agricultural land is decreasing in Bangladesh day by day. Under this circumstances, brinjal production under agroforestry system may be a good option. Considering this fact a field experiment was conducted during November 2018 to April 2019 cropping season in farmer's field located at Uttar Saidpur village, Auliapur union of Dinajpur Sadar upazila, Dinajpur district, Bangladesh. Aim of this experiment was to find out the most perfect brinjal-litchi canopy combination that will give maximum outcome. The experiment was laid out with single factor Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) consisting four replications and five different treatments viz. brinjal cultivation as sole cropping (T1), brinjal cultivation at the floor of 2 years old litchi canopy (T2), brinjal cultivation at the floor of 4 years old litchi canopy (T3), brinjal cultivation at the floor of 6 years old litchi canopy (T4) and brinjal cultivation at the floor of 12 years old litchi canopy (T5). The results of the experiment revealed that there were significant effect of litchi canopy sizes on the growth, yield contributing characters and yield of brinjal. The highest fruit yield was found in open field condition (10.89 t/ha) followed by brinjal cultivation under 2 years old litchi canopies (9.56 t/ha). Whereas, no fruit yield was recorded from the brinjal plants cultivated under 12 years old litchi tree canopies. From the economic analysis, it was observed that the highest BCR was received in brinjal cultivation at the floor of 2 years old litchi canopies (1.56) followed by where brinjal was cultivated with 4 years old litchi trees (1.37). On the other hand, the lowest BCR was obtained from open field condition (1.23) where brinjal was cultivated as sole crop. Finally, it may be concluded that, out of the five treatments, 2 years old litchi canopy (T2) would be the best brinjal-litchi combination. Anyway, brinjal can be cultivated at the floor of litchi up to 6 years old garden successfully and 12 years old litchi garden is not suitable for brinjal cultivation at all.