Pigeon Pea and Cowpea-Based Cropping Systems Improve Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Colonisation of Subsequent Maize on the Alfisols in Central Malawi

Table 1

Effect of cropping system on VAM fungal colonisation on pigeon pea, cowpea, and maize at the two study sites in year one (2013/14 cropping season).

Crop	Cropping system	Lilongwe	Dowa
		VAM colonisation (%)	VAM colonisation (%)
PP	Sole PP	25.0	41.1
	PP + CP intercrop	26.9	36.9
	PP + MZ intercrop	26.1	37.4
	LSD
	F pr.	0.91	0.51
	CV%	19.8	11.6
CP	Sole CP	33.2	46.7
	CP + PP intercrop	28.2	40.1
	CP + MZ intercrop	25.5	41.2
	LSD
	F pr.	0.261	0.660
	CV%	16.8	21.2
MZ	Sole MZ	15.2	24.6
	MZ + PP intercrop	17.3	22.6
	MZ + CP intercrop	14.5	20.8
	Sole MZ + 92N	19.4	23.4
	LSD
	F pr.	0.872	0.300
	CV%	47.8	9.6

Note. LSD = least significant difference at 5%; F pr. = F probability; CV% = coefficient of variation; CP = cowpea; MZ = maize; PP = pigeon pea; 92N = 92 kg N ha⁻¹; ns = nonsignificant.