Food and Agri Economics Review (FAER) 1(2) (2021) 64-76 Quick Response Code Access this article online Website: www.faer.com.my DOI: 10.26480/faer.02.2021.64.76 Cite The Article: Ram Babu Neupane, Rupak Karn, Sagar Bhusal, Bhishma Raj Dahal, Ritesh Kumar Jha (2021). Influence of Mixed Cropping of Cabbage and Mustard On Weed Dynamics and Yield of Potato (Solanum Tuberosum). Food and Agri Economics Review, 1(2): 64-76. ISSN: 2785-9002 (Online) CODEN: FAERCS RESEARCH ARTICLE Food and Agri Economics Review (FAER) DOI: http://doi.org/10.26480/faer.02.2021.64.76 INFLUENCE OF MIXED CROPPING OF CABBAGE AND MUSTARD ON WEED DYNAMICS AND YIELD OF POTATO (SOLANUM TUBEROSUM) Ram Babu Neupane, Rupak Karn, Sagar Bhusal, Bhishma Raj Dahal, Ritesh Kumar Jha * Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal *Corresponding Author Email: ritesh.lord.of.truth@gmail.com This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ARTICLE DETAILS ABSTRACT Article History: Received 24 April 2021 Accepted 27 May 2021 Available online 28 May 2021 A field experiment was conducted in Horticulture farm of Agriculture and Forestry University, Chitwan, Nepal during September 2018 to January 2019 to evaluate the influence of mixed cropping of cabbage and mustard in weed dynamics and yield of potato. The experiment was carried out in a split-plot design with three replications. The treatment consists of with mustard (M1) and without mustard (M2) as main plot factor and eight treatments namely, sole potato at 0.7m (T1) and 1.4m (T5) inter-row spacing, sole cabbage at 0.35m (T2) and 0.7m (T3) inter-row spacing, potato at 1.4 m row spacing with one (T4), two (T7) and three (T8) row cabbage, and potato at 0.7m row spacing with one-row cabbage (T6), as subplot factor. Effect of broadcasting mustard was found significant in the dry weight of broadleaf weed, the height of cabbage and potato, cabbage canopy, and net production of potato. Net production was calculated by converting the yield of all the three crops in the monetary value of potato. Similarly, the effect of different intercropping of cabbage and potato was found significant on cabbage and potato height, cabbage canopy, dry weight of weed, the yield of cabbage and potato, and net production of potato. The interaction of main plot factors and sub-plot factors was found statistically significant; mustard broadcasting on intercropping of 35cm cabbage within 70cm row to row spacing of potato (M1×T6) was found superior in terms of yield of all the three crops and net production of potato. Similarly, (M1×T6) had a lower dry weight of broadleaf; Solanum nigrum and Chenopodium album were major weeds—both being a broadleaf weed. Thus, it would be better to suggest vegetable growing farmers, to follow mixed cropping of cabbage, mustard and potato for higher return and sustainable ecological weed management. KEYWORDS split-plot design, broadcasting, main-plot, sub-plot, productivity 1. INTRODUCTION Stability and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems are dependent on plant biodiversity and species composition (Neem et al., 1994, and Hooper and Vitousek, 1997). Besides, the types of crops grown in any area is largely determined by four fundamental factors namely, physical, social economic and political factors. Physical factors like soil, radiation, water, moisture and temperature significantly affects the ability of crops to grow; but, the influence of social (taste, tradition, religion, etc.), political (stable price and market) and economic factors (cost of production, demand, price etc) cannot be neglected (Norman, 1974). Mixing different species of plantsin the cropping system has a magnificent advantage to contribute to sustainable agriculture (Vandermeer, 1989). Mixed cropping is the system of growing two or more crops together on the same piece of land, in such a way that, the best possible return is expected. It helps to decrease the risk of crop failure during unfavourable climatic conditions, rehabilitate disturbed ecosystem services, and decrease the risk of invasion of disease and pests (Gurr et al., 2003). Vegetable farming is a source of subsistence for more than 3.2 million farmers of Nepal (Dahal et al., 2019); besides, Vegetable crops share large figures in the agricultural GDP of Nepal. Potato(Solanum tuberosum) is one of the important vegetable crops of Nepal; it belongsto the family Solanaceae. It is a source of income to small landholding farmers of hilly regions of Nepal, more importantly, it is a major staple crop in hills of Nepal (Bajracharya and Sapkota, 2017). As a cool-season crop, potato, Nepalese farmers have been cultivating it since 200 years ago (Ojha et al., 2001). It is cultivated from 100 m altitudes in the south to 4000 m altitude in the northern part of the country (Dahal and Rijal, 2019). The productivity of potatoes in fiscal year 2016/17 was 13,943 kg/ha which is lower than the global average (MoALD, 2017). Low productivity of potato in Nepal is ascribed by the poor adoption of improved cultivation practices namely the adoption of improved varieties, fertilizer management, weed and pests management. Major weeds of potato are Cyperus rotundus, chenopodium album, Phalaris minor, Coronophus didymus . Weed is one of the major problems of potato as it competes with light, moisture, space nutrients and reduced potato tuber size (Love et al., 1995) but Nelson and Therson(1981) found that weed not only reduce tuber size but tuber number also; similarly, weed reduce tuber yield by more than 55% (Rana et al., 2004). There are three possible ways for weeds management: use of herbicides, manual and managing weed-crop competition. Use of either chemical or manual method for weed management reduces the benefit of potato farming; thus, changing crop-weed interaction is the economical method. Intercropping, a method of changing crop weed integration is best suited for better use of environmental resources than mono-cropping (Fukai and Trenbath, 1993). It is important from the aspect of profitability and productivity in terms of time and area; furthermore, they are alternative to the use of herbicides (Liebman and Davis, 2000) as they reduce weed density and promote efficient growth of crop (Liebman and Dyck, 1993).