Cropping systems

Intercropping refers to the practice of growing annuals/biennials in the interspaces of coconut.  A large variety of crops have been found suitable for growing under irrigated and rainfed conditions.

 Vegetables

Snake gourd, bottle gourd, amaranthus, coccinia, brinjal and bitter gourd are compatible crops with coconut.  Intercropping with vegetables helped to generate additional employment to the tune of 215 to 365 man days/ha/year. 

Ornamental plants

Heliconia, Anthurium, Jasminum pubescence and Marigold

  Medicinal and aromatic plants

Long pepper and Patchouli

Mixedcropping in coconut gardens

Growing of perennial crops in association with matured coconut palm is referred to as mixed cropping.  A number of perennials like cocoa, clove, nutmeg, coffee, pepper, mulberry, jack, breadfruit, mango, sapota, papaya and timber yielding trees can be grown in association with coconut.

Coconut based multistoried cropping system

This refers to the cultivation of three or more crops having different morphological characteristics in the interspaces of coconut so as to intercept solar radiation at different levels and exploit different soil zones.

High-density multispecies cropping systems

•  HDMSCS models consist of a large number of crop species with very high plant density.

• It includes annuals, biennials and perennials.

• The crops selected include cash crops, food crops and fodder crops.

• It includes large, medium, and small canopy crops arranged in a systematic way.

• The soil disturbance should be kept minimum - only slash weeding is done.

• The biomass (other than the economic part) is recycled within the system

• The annual crops are removed as the canopy size of perennial crops increases.

  Arecanut based cropping systems

Arecanut is cultivated with spacing of 2.7 X 2.7 m provides ample scope for cultivation various annual by biennial and perennial crops in the inter spaces.

Banana, pepper, cocoa, elephant foot yam, citrus, betelvine, pineapple etc. were found suitable for inter/mixed cropping in arecanut.  However, it is found that as the age of the garden advances, only few crops can be grown profitably as mixed crop viz., pepper, cocoa, banana, lime and betelvine. 

  Mixed farming

Mixed farming in coconut refers to the integration of other enterprises such as dairying, poultry, and sericulture with coconut cultivation by raising fodder crops, mulberry etc in the interspaces.  Coconut based mixed farming with dairying involves establishment of pastures in the interspaces of coconut, maintenance of milch animals on the fodder produced and recycling the cattle manure, urine etc to the fodder crops and coconut.  Studies have shown that some of the fodder grasses like hybrid Napier grass (Pennisetum typhoides P. purpureum), Sudan grass (Sorghum sudanense), Guinea grass (Panicum maximum), setaria, Rhodes grass (Chloris gayana) and legumes like lucerne (Medicago sativa) and berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) come up very well in the partially shaded conditions of coconut plantations in humid tropics.