Cultivo consorciado de milho e soja

Abstract

The intercropping of corn and soybean is not new, however, the evolution of technologies/cultivars requires subject update. In addition, the success of corn and soybean intercropping depends on a synchrony between the phenological stages at silage timing of the species and its plant/row arrangement used. The objective of this study was to evaluate the forage production and its silage quality of corn and soybean intercrop using cultivars with different maturation cycles (experiment 1) and to verify the influence of different maize and soybean intercrop row arrangements in the forage production, silage quality and maize grain yield compared with a monocrop maize cultivation (experiment 2). Both studies were carried out at the Technologic University of Paraná, Campus of Dois Vizinhos - PR, Brazil in a randomized block design with 4 replications. Experiment 1 was carried out along 2016/17 harvest season, in a randomized block design with a 2 × 3 factorial scheme. Factors consisted of two maize hybrids (1: P1630YHR - early cycle and 2: medium cycle P30F53VYHR) and two soybean cultivars (P95R51 and TMG7062- with maturation cycle group of 5.1 and 6.2 respectively) and a control treatment, represented by maize monocrop. Thus, experiment 2 evaluated eight arrangements between maize and soybean intercrop (number and distance between rows), plus a treatment with maize in monocrop. Silage was harvested when maize reached 2/3 of the grain filled with starch, and maize grain harvest (study 2) with approximately 20% moisture. An analysis of variance was applied and when a significant effect was observed, a comparison test of means (Tukey) was performed. For experiment 2, treatment of maize monocrop was compared with the intercrop arrangements by the t-test. Data analysis was performed with the help of Sisvar 5.6 software. It was noticed at the first experiment that maize and soybean intercrop does not affect silage biomass yield. It was also noticed that both soybean cultivars presented compatible cycles for ensiling with maize hybrids, once they were in phenological stages from R5,3 to R7 at the maize silage right time. Maize hybrid P30F53 produced higher amounts of biomass than P1630, which also resulted in a higher amount of crude protein per hectare. The P1630 + P95R51 intercrop produced 458 kg ha-1 of crude protein over maize monocrop. At the second experiment, it was reported that corn biomass yield among different arrangements were similar, although, some arrangements showed lower biomass (about 3,000 kg ha-1) when compared to corn monocrop. However, there were no differences among the evaluated arrangements and maize monocrop for total biomass yield. It has been found that crude protein in the silage and consequently per unit area increases as soybean biomass increases. Maize thousand grain weight and grain yield per plant and per area were affected in some of the maize and soybean intercropped arrangements. It was noticed that the arrangement with two maize rows + two soybean rows (2M + 2S-30 cm) and/or four maize rows + four soybean rows (4M + 4S-30 cm) showed higher crude protein yield (kg ha-1) associated with similar maize grain yield of monocrop treatment. Based on data from both experiments, it is confirmed that soybean intercropped with maize has the potential to raise silage crude protein content and yield.