Economic Analysis of the Corn Intercropped With Marandu Grass as a Function of Azospirillum brasilense Application

The Integrated Agricultural Production Systems (IAPS) under No-Tillage System (NTS), add values to grain production and to livestock activity over the year, besides providing reestablishment of degraded areas. The objective of this work was to evaluate the production costs and profitability of the irrigated corn crop, intercropped or not with Urochloa brizantha cv. Marandu, inoculated or not with Azospirillum brasilense, in the lowland Cerrado. The work was composed of two sequential experiments, conducted in Selvíria-MS, from 2015 to 2016. The experimental design of the two experiments was in randomized blocks with four replicates. The first experiment consisted of six treatments: (a) inoculate crop in single crop, (b) single corn crop without inoculation, (c) intercropping without inoculation, (d) intercropping with inoculation in both seeds, (e) intercropping with inoculation of corn seeds, and (f) intercropping with inoculation of grass seeds. In the corn off-season harvest, for the second experiment, the experimental units with grass were subdivided into three treatments: (a) leaf inoculated grass (250 mL of inoculant), (b) grass broadcast fertilized with urea (200 kg of N ha-1 year-1) in broadcast and (c) grass without fertilization or inoculation. The inputs were the most expensive components in corn production. In the intercropping treatments, where the grass was destined for silage, the profitability indexes were positive, enabling the system regardless of Azospirillum brasilense inoculation.