Performance of sweet gourd under fruit tree based agroforestry practices in char land ecosystem

A field experiment was conducted in Char Kalibari of Old Brahmaputra River under Sadar Upazila of Mymensingh district during October 2016 to June 2017 to study the performance of sweet gourd in association with five years old mango and guava trees as agroforestry system. Mango and Guava trees were transplanted under strip plantation method during 2012 maintaining a spacing 3.6m  3.7m distance. In this study sweet gourd was cultivated with and without fruit trees combinations which were the treatments of the study. Sweet gourd was grown under different treatments viz. T1 (sweet gourd cultivation in association with mango tree), T2 (sweet gourd in association with guava tree) and T3 (sweet gourd cultivation without mango and guava trees) following a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Growth, yield attributes and yield of sweet gourd were observed under different treatments of this study i.e with and without mango and guava tree combinations. Yield and yield attributes of mango and guava trees also recorded. From the result it is found that growth and yield of sweet gourd were remarkably reduced in association with both mango and guava trees. Yield of sweet gourd severely reduced per unit area compare to per plant but it was almost similar in association with both mango and guava trees. Around 77% yield reduction of sweet gourd gourd was recorded per unit area where as it was around 50% in per plant of sweet gourd. Yield and yield attributes of mango and guava trees almost identical with and without sweet gourd combination. Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) of mango and guava with sweet gourd were 1.257 and 1.261, respectively, which indicate these combined production system in char land ecosystem are more productive compare to sole cultivation of fruit trees or vegetable crops. From this study it may be concluded that agroforestry practices in char areas of Bangladesh by combining fruit trees with sweet gourd is profitable than mono cropping system.