abstract
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Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum subsp. durum) is one of the most essential cereal crops and is cultivated worldwide. Durum wheat production and cultivation areas are concentrated in the Mediterranean Area. Climate change consequence affects all regions around the world thus ensuring sustainable crop performances are encouraged by the CerealMed project (Enhancing diversity in Mediterranean cereal farming systems). The project promoted the use of innovative agronomic systems including consociation between wheat and legumes using mixes between wheat and local vetch as a new approach of farming system to increase and improve quality of yield and minimize the problems due to mono-culture and improve soil fertility. The field trials are designed at the farm of Beni-Suef university in Egypt (28o 54ʹ N, 30o 56ʹ E) under clay soil conditions. Five durum wheat cultivars (Beni-Suef 1, Beni-Suef 4, Beni-Suef 5, Beni-Suef 6, and Beni-Suef 7) are used in this study, three treatments are implemented as follows a) five durum wheats are sown as mono-culture without local vetch consociation, b) five durum wheats are sown as mixed with lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) using rate 1:1 (100 kg wheat seed ha-1 + 100 kg lentil seed ha-1 and c) five durum wheats are sown as mixed with Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) using rate 1:1 (100 kg wheat seed ha-1 + 100 kg chickpea seed ha-1 ). The plot size is 4.5 m2 using RCBD for each treatment with two replications, biological yield, grain yield and its components traits are recorded. The average of biological yield ranged from 5.43 kg to 8.18 kg/plot and from 2.3 kg to 3.09 kg/plot, the highest value of biological yield is obtained by Beni-Suef 4 consociated with lentil (8.18 kg/plot) and the best genotype gave the high value of grain yield is Beni-Suef 5 (3 kg/plot) consociated with lentil. These results indicated that vetch-wheat mixed crops as farming system increase the biological and grain yield and improve soil fertility and quality of straw yield for animal feeding.