Abstract

The association of crops presents as one of the cultivation practices to be used in the systems of vegetable crop production in the northeast Brazil semiarid, fertilized with biomass of spontaneous species of the Caatinga biome as green manure. Under this approach, a study was performed during the period from June to December 2013, in the research area of the Experimental Farm belonging to the Universidade Federal Rural do Semi-árido, Mossoró, RN (Brazil), to assess the feasibility of the agro-economic efficiency of the radish × cowpea-vegetable association manured with different amounts of roostertree biomass in semiarid environment. A randomized complete block design was used with four treatments and five repetitions. The treatments were composed of four biomass amounts of roostertree incorporated to the soil (10, 25, 40 and 55 t ha^-1 on a dry basis). The highest agronomic and economic efficiencies of the intercropping of radish with cowpea-vegetable were obtained with the incorporation of 53 and 47 t ha^-1 of roostertree biomass added to the soil. The roostertree spontaneous species of the Caatinga biome it is showed as an efficient green manure in the association of radish with cowpea-vegetable.

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