Effects of Age of oil Palm in Plantation on the Growth, Competitive Interactions and Mixture Productivity of Cassava, Maize and Pepper in oil palm-based strip intercropping system in the rainforest of Nigeria

Experiments were conducted between 2014 and 2017 cropping seasons in a 2 to 6 years old oil palm field at the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR), Benin City, in the rainforest zone of Nigeria. The objectives were to examine the growth and yield responses of strip intercropped mixtures of Cassava, Maize and Pepper sown in the alleys of 2 to 6 years old oil palm fields. Treatments were arranged in a factorial scheme consisting of intercrop types and ages of oil palm fields. Data were collected on the growth and yield variables of the alley crops and competitive functions of crop mixtures. Age of oil palm fields and strip intercrop types affected intercrop growth and yields and the parameters indicating yield advantage of crop mixtures over sole crops which were computed as land equivalent ratio (LER), percentage land saved, relative yield, aggressivity (Agg) and competitive ratio (CR).

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.