Green Global
Foundation   Journal
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PERFORMANCE OF GROWTH AND SOIL PROPERTIES CHANGE BY FOUR MULTIPURPOSE TREE SPECIES IN ALLEY CROPPING SYSTEM (Pages : 21 - 27)

The experiment was carried out at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU) research farm, Gazipur during the period from November 2002 to April 2003 to evaluate the changes of soil properties at different nitrogen levels in alley cropping system. The experiment was conducted in a split plot design with three replications. Four tree species namely, Gliricidia sepium, Indigofera tysmanii, Leucaena leucocephala and Cassia siamea were arranged in the main plots while five nitrogen doses (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% plus pruned material) were distributed to sub-plots. In the control plots, recommended N doses were used but no pruned materials were incorporated. The growth performance of four MPTS after pruning at different intervals showed that Gliricidia sepium maintained its superiority over the other tree species in terms of both tree height and number of branches per tree at all the measurement dates. The maximum amount of fresh pruned materials were produced and added to the soil by Gliricidia sepium (10.63 t ha-1 ) which was followed by Indigofera tysmanii (10.48), Cassia siamea (7.73 t ha-1 ) and Leucaena leucocephala (5.88 t ha-1 ) species, respectively. Soil properties such as organic C, total N, available P, exchangeable K and Ca, CEC and S were 25.00, 31.25, 16.69, 53.26, 38.87, 15.35, and 19.75 percent higher in alley cropped plots over their initial values. Among the alleys consisted of four tree species, all the three vegetables performed better in G. sepium, which was followed by I. tysmanii, L. leucocephala and C. seamia alleys. This increased performance has been mostly due to the contribution of alley cropping system. Download