The study was carried out in a six-year-old mahogany plantation that was established at Mala, Kerala, India during 2009 at a spacing of 2.5 x 2.5 meters. The trial was laid out in a split plot design during June 2014 with fertilizer levels as main plots and intercrops as sub plots in three replications and trial repeated for two consecutive years (2014-2016). The various N, P, K fertilizer combinations were viz. F 1 - 0:0:0; F 2 - 50:25:25; F 3 - 100:50:50 and F 4 - 150:75:75 kg ha -1 yr -1 N, P 2 O 5 and K 2 O. Tree growth in terms of height, diameter, basal area and volume showed significant increase with increase in fertilizer levels. The volume production was the highest under the highest fertilizer regimes (F4) (105.28 m 3 ha -1 ) which was almost 135 per cent higher as compare to unfertilized control plot (F1: 44.84 m 3 ha -1 ). This clearly indicated that nutrient supplementation at younger ages can bring substantial increase in tree productivity for mahogany. Yet another observation was the greater complementarity between the mahogany trees and the herbaceous intercrops. The positive influence of fertilizer on the tree growth was reflected on the intercrop yield as well. The yield reduction in mahogany intercropped plots was found compensated by tree fertilization. In brief, the study revealed the rationale for tree fertilization at younger stages of mahogany growth which may be desirable for the enhancing the productivity of the intercrops.
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Kumar et al. (2024) studied this question.
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