ABSTRACT
Intercropping and crop rotations in cassava cultivation: a production systems approach Thomas W. Kuyper, Wageningen University, The Netherlands; and Samuel Adjei-Nsiah, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ghana
1 Introduction
2 Advantages of cassava as a crop
3 Crop rotations in cassava
4 Cassava intercropping
5 Yield increases through cassava intercropping
6 Achieving yield increases in cassava intercropping
7 Soil fertility enhancement through cassava intercropping
8 Farmer experimentation during cassava cropping
9 Cassava functional traits
10 Future trends and conclusion
11 Where to look for further information
12 References
Cassava is the sixth most important food crop globally (Burns et al., 2010) and it is grown in a highly diverse array of cropping systems. This diversity, which reflects the versatility of cassava, includes smallholder farming systems, but also larger-scale plantations (for animal feed, biofuels). Cassava does not have a specific and determined maturity period and it can therefore be harvested over a range of ages, depending on cropping system and socio-economic conditions. In general the cropping cycle of sweet cassava, especially on the fertile dark Amazonian soils, is much shorter than that of bitter cassava, which usually grows on oxisols and ultisols, in the same area (Fraser et al., 2012; Jakovac et al., 2016). There is a tendency in Africa towards shorter cycles of cassava in conjunction with increased commercialization of the crop (Fermont et al., 2010a).
