Effects of different cultivation methods on growth and yield of wild Chrysanthemum under intercropping system

In order to develop technologies for high yield cultivation of wild Chrysanthemum under intercropping system, field experiment was conducted to determine the differences in yield and growth between wid-narrow row spacing cropping pattern A and equal row spacing cropping pattern B in wild Chrysanthemum. The results showed that the average yield of fresh flower and dry flower in pattern A reached 4 365.4 kg/hm2 and 1 570.9 kg/hm2, respectively, out-yielding the pattern B 98.6% and 96.1%, respectively. However, there was no significant difference in ratio of flower dry weight (DW) to flower flesh weight (FW) between the two cropping systems. Compared to pattern B, the yield per plant and the dry matter accumulation of pattern A was higher, the SPAD value of leaf during vegetative growth phase went up quicker, the leaf area index (LAI) was higher at peak-flowering stage. The plant height and the number of branches in pattern A increased by 11.4% and 49.3% in pattern B. Pattern A also favoured the growth and the increase of effective flower bud number. The population yield was the highest with 15 cm plant spacing for both pattern A and pattern B.