China’s maize-soybean strip intercropping technology led to high yield

ISLAMABAD: Maize-soybean strip intercropping technology, an advanced Chinese agricultural technology created high yield of both crops while not occupying extra land, finished its first-phase sowing on 30-acre land of Pakistan, says a report published by China Economic Net (CEN).

Once the second phase completes in March, this spring the total area of demonstration plots will reach 100 acres, making a giant leap of about 270.4% in comparison with last season’s area.

“In the last one and half months, we traveled 18,000 km across the country to complete sowing. Until now we have demonstrated our technology on 30 acres of land, and in March 70 more acres of land will be sown with soybean varieties from China,” according to Muhammad Ali Raza, the post-doc from Sichuan Agricultural University. Raza has been engaged in promoting the Chinese agricultural technology under Prof. Yang Wenyu and Yang Feng’s support and guidance together with Muhammad Hayder Bin Khalid, another post-doc from the same university.

This season the team has built larger-scale cooperation especially with universities, institutes and local farmers. Four universities, i.e. Sindh Agricultural University, Tandojam, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, and PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, and Nuclear Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad have joined this season’s demonstration.