Comparative of intercropping and mono-cropping system on growth performance Ananas comosus L

In global production, pineapple is considered as the third most crucial tropical fruit. Pineapple is the pioneer crop grown as a commodity crop in Malaysia. This commodity brings up country's position to a better position in the world market between the late 60s and early 70s. Even more, trend of farming practice for pineapple plantation in Malaysia is mostly monocrop which is single crop only. Mostly, farmers cultivated a land with pineapple in mono-cropping system, yet, the practice contributed to yield reduction in pineapple production, because there are many weaknesses affecting the production of pineapple. Thus, this research was carried out to investigate the potential of intercropping of pineapple with banana and also to observe the different between the two cropping system of pineapple. Main focused of this study is, to observe the growth performance of pineapple, MD2 variety and the impact of agronomic practice in the mono-cropping and intercropping plot. The method used in this research are mono-cropping and intercropping system. The parameters of growth performance that have been measured in this research include number of leaves, length of leaves, width of leaves and height of plants. The different parameter of growth performance between two treatments were analysed by the Independent Variable of T- Test. The result indicated no significant difference showed in the parameter of growth performance from both treatments except for parameter height of plants. Apart of that, the result of agronomic practices showed that the soil structure in mono-cropping area was not well-drained causing, excess water lodging at the planting area and one of the bed plots collapsed. In addition, there were also frequent weed problem in monocrop area as compared to the intercropping area. The study showed that the intercropping system of pineapple and banana could improve the soil structure with less weeding without affecting its growth performance as compared to mono- cropping system. Thus, the study can be used as data to encourage intercropping of pineapple with banana.