A field experiment was conducted to have a comprehensive understanding of various approaches to draw inferences from intercropping of castor with different crops on sandy clay loam soil at the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM), Hyderabad during rainy seasons of 2007 and 2008. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with 14 treatments each replicated thrice. The intercrops tested were sorghum, pearl millet, green gram, black gram, soybean and sunflower. The univariate analysis of variance showed that the intercropping of 2 rows of black gram in castor spaced uniformly at 90 cm or 3 rows in between paired rows of castor spaced at 120/60 cm yielded bonus yield of the pulse with no significant loss in yield of castor compared to the sole crop. The bivariate analysis of variance confirmed that this was the most productive intercropping system in both low and high rainfall seasons. The land equivalent ratios (LERs) showed that 24 to 61% additional total productivity was obtained by intercropping black gram, soybean or green gram. Such an advantage also occurred to the extent of 29 to 39% in terms of better land and time use efficiency (area time equivalent ratio). The other approaches like competition ratio, land equivalent coefficient and crop performance ratio also confirmed the higher productive efficiency of these intercropping systems. The monetary advantage assessed through conventional approaches like gross and net returns as well as through the advanced and refined technique of relative net returns (RNR) established that the profit was also significantly increased by this expedient of companion cropping with black gram.

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