Impacts of High and Low-Input Farming Systems on the Quality Change of Safflower Oil While Intercropped with Bitter Vetch.

The purpose of this factorial field experiment was to investigate the influence of farming systems and intercropping patterns (IPs) on the physiological aspects of safflower and bitter vetch. Treatments included high and low-input farming systems and various IPs that exchanged safflower and bitter vetch with row ratios of 2:2, 2:3, 2:4, 2:5, while sole cropping safflower and bitter vetch were used as control. The highest grain yield of both plants was obtained from the high input farming system (HIFS). The most safflower oil yield and protein yield of bitter vetch were achieved from sole cropping in the HIFS. Safflower sole cropping in the Low-input farming system (LIFS) had the highest oil content, but in other traits, HIFS had superior to LIFS. Intercropping resulted in high P and N content and low stearic acid in safflower compared with sole cropping. These novel findings demonstrate that HIFS was beneficial than LIFS in all traits of both plants except safflower oil content and some fatty acids content like palmitic acid. Also, in the 2:2 IP monetary advantage index (MAI) and the land equivalent ratio (LER=1.13) were highest that indicating that 13% additional area needed by the sole cropping system to provide an equivalent yield in HIFS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]