Production of sweet corn cobs in an intercropping with Crotalaria juncea, under organic management

Abstract

The objective was to evaluate the impacts of organic management forms of the intercropping
between corn and Crotalaria juncea crops in the production of sweet corn cobs. An experiment
was carried out at Embrapa Agrobiologia between Nov/2010 and Mar/2011. A randomized
complete block design with 06 treatments and 04 replications was used: T1: C. juncea sown 07
days before corn and management at 33 days after emergence (33-DAE); T2: C. juncea sown
on the same date as corn (29-DAE); T3: C. juncea sown 14 days after corn (102-DAE); T4: C.
juncea sown 28 days after corn (88-DAE); T5 and T6: corn in monoculture, with and without nitrogen
fertilizer coverage, respectively. The treatments T4 and T6 showed the best results. The
length and diameter of the cobs, although with commercial standard, presented low values,
this makes difficult the commercialization in demanding markets in metric characteristics. The
intercrop system is feasible, provided that appropriate management is adopted.