Table 3.
Maize grain yield, N exported with grain and nitrogen agronomic efficiency (AE) of applied N (mean ± standard deviation) of two harvest seasons (2016/17 and 2017/18) as affected by a combination of N fertilization (0 or 150 kg ha-1) and intercrop with B. brizantha (B) or B. humidicola (H).
| Treatments | Grain Yield |
N exported by grain |
AE |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | |
| --------- t ha-1 --------- | --------- kg ha-1 --------- | ------ kg kg-1 ---- | ||||
| M0 | 5.1b ± 0.8 | 4.8cd ± 1.1 | 54.9b ± 15.6 | 51.8c ± 14.9 | – | – |
| MB0 | 5.6b ± 0.9 | 5.3c ± 0.5 | 54.0b ± 3.9 | 55.9c ± 8.5 | – | – |
| MH0 | – | 4.3d ± 0.8 | – | 45.0c ± 14.5 | – | – |
| M150 | 8.7a ± 1.0 | 10.0b ± 1.6 | 118.0a ± 25.9 | 139.9b ± 27.9 | 23.3a ± 6.6 | 34.4b ± 10.9 |
| MB150 | 9.0a ± 0.9 | 10.3b ± 1.1 | 116.6a ± 8.9 | 141.7b ± 17.3 | 22.6a ± 5.4 | 33.2b ± 7.4 |
| MH150 | – | 11.5a ± 0.9 | – | 168.6a ± 18.6 | – | 48.1a ± 5.8 |
M: maize monocrop; MB and MH: maize intercropped with B. brizantha and B. humidicola, respectively; 0 and 150 subscripts indicate the 0 and 150 kg ha-1 of N applied to the maize crop. In 2016/17 B. humidicola germination did not germinate during the maize season: MH0 and MH150 plots were similar to the maize monocrop treatments. Different letters after means denote significant differences between treatments in the columns for the LSD test (p ≤ 0.1).