Income intensification strategy: determination of the optimum time to under-plant oil palm with cocoa

English

Cocoa was inter-cropped with oil palm of three different pahn ages to determine the best time to under plant cocoa in oil palm. The experiment was conducted from 1994 to 2004 at the Oil Palm Research Institute, Kusi. Oil palm at three different ages;2, 4 and 6 years after planting were un der-planted with mixed cocoa hybrids. These were compared with sole oil pabn and sole cocoa. The treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design and replicated three times. Growth and yield of oil palm under-cropped with cocoa after 4 years comparedfavorably with sole oil palm. The income equivalent ratio defined as the land area under sole oil palm that is required to produce the incomes achieved in inter-cropping, were 1.08,1.25, 1.02, 1, 0.31 for 2 years oil palm with cocoa, 4 years oil palm with cocoa, 6 years oil paint with cocoa, sole oil palm and sole cocoa respectively. Results of this study suggest that maximum returns front the land is achieved when 4 years old oil palm is under-planted with cocoa followed by 2 years and 6 years old oil palm respectively. Such intercropping gave higher returns from the land than either sole oil palm or cocoa plots