Journal of Food and Nutrition Research, 2021, Vol. 9, No. 5, 251-257 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfnr/9/5/2 Published by Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/jfnr-9-5-2 Improvement of Intercropping Performance Assessment in a System with Difference of Crops’ Cycle Durations: Calculation Methods for Rice-cassava Association Konan Kouassi Urbain 1,* , Koné Brahima 1 , Konan Kouamé Firmin 2 , Keli Zagbahi Jules 3 , Bouet Alphonse 3 , Yao-Kouamé Albert 1 1 Felix Houphouet Boigny University, Earth Sciences Unit, Soil science department, 22 BP 582 Abidjan 22, Côte d’Ivoire 2 Training and Research Unit in Agroforestry, Earth Sciences Department, Jean Lorougnon Guede (UJLoG) University, 02 BP 150 Daloa 02, Côte d’Ivoire 3 National Center for Agronomic Research (CNRA), 01 BP 1740 Abidjan 01 Côte d’Ivoire *Corresponding author: Received April 02, 2021; Revised May 03, 2021; Accepted May 10, 2021 Abstract Crop performance evaluation in intercropping involving booth crops with different cropping cycle durations is still a concern for agronomic research while farmers already adopted this agro-system in spite of yield decreasing of one of the component. Agronomic trial involving rice-cassava intercropping with different densities of cassava planting was undertaken in western Côte d'Ivoire to determine most reliable parameters for performance index calculation comparing the conventional to new proposed methods. In a Fisher design, number of root/plant, cassava yield, cassava yield/2 rice cycles, 1000 rice grain weight, and rice grain yield were collected for exploring their reliability on global yield determination. Area Time Equivalent Ratio (ATER) and Crop Performance Ratio Time corrected were calculated as conventional method of performance index assessment while, average yield of cassava for two cycle of rice (ATER1) and the mean for both cropping cycles of rice (ATER2) were proposed as new methods. Except the variation of yield in single cropping, no significant effect of cassava planting density was recorded in global production and ATER value overlapped the threshold value of 1 in some extend. Only calculated yield were reliable for global production pointing out ATER1 as the most consistent method for rice-cassava intercropping performance determination. Rice grain yield and half of cassava yield calculated on basis of two rice cropping cycle were revealed as the most reliable parameters for ATER calculation highlighting such method viability for intercropping performance assessment when involving two crops with different cycle durations. Keywords: global production, crop cycle duration, intercropping performance, Area Time Equivalent Ratio Cite This Article: Konan Kouassi Urbain, Koné Brahima, Konan Kouamé Firmin, Keli Zagbahi Jules, Bouet Alphonse, and Yao-Kouamé Albert, “Improvement of Intercropping Performance Assessment in a System with Difference of Crops’ Cycle Durations: Calculation Methods for Rice-cassava Association.” Journal of Food and Nutrition Research, vol. 9, no. 5 (2021): 251-257. doi: 10.12691/jfnr-9-5-2. 1. Introduction The improvement of agricultural sustainability favors the maintenance of the intercropping systems [1]. This practice has been acclaimed internationally as the most reliable approach to safeguard the sustainability of vegetable production [2,3,4]. Worldwide, including Côte d’Ivoire, intercropping was practiced since antiquity and continuous to be adopted by farmers in particular, for upland rice production mixing with cassava crop. But the gape recorded in rice production requires analyze of this production system, while, existing index of performance assessment missed accuracy when intercropping includes crops with different cycle durations [5,6]. Area-Time Equivalent Ratio (ATER) proposed to solve this problem is considered to be underestimating the advantage of intercropping [1]. Hence, crop performance ratio “time corrected” concept was initiated by [7] but, its’ adoption is still limited [8]. Therefore, there is a lack of fitting method for assessing intercropping performance involving crops with difference in cycle durations. In this line, Konan et al. (unpublished) also proposed two new methods for rice- cassava intercropping in western Côte d’Ivoire involving upland rice and cassava. Rationalizing yield production according to the shortest cycle duration of one of the crops and/or using the total production within the longest cycle duration were deemed to be inclusive in intercropping performance. The current paper is volunteer to assess the accuracy of new methods of intercropping performance determination compared to the conventional methods. It aims to i) High light an optimum density for Global net production in rice-cassava intercropping; ii) identifying yields and yield components relevant to