Has work been done to find out which are the best crops to grow with Jatropha in East and Southern Africa and if yes, which ones have been found to grow best?
I have seen onions used for intercropping with very good results, but this was in India and the company had the complimentary infrastructure to use the inter-crop successfully. Other than that I am somewhat sceptical. In principal it certainly makes sense, but it is important to appreciate the following factors:
1) If you are going to plant the Jatorpha close (2m X 2m) then it is necessary to bear in mind that in two to three years depending on environmental circumstances and how the crop is treated, that the Jatropha trees will be of a size that will not allow sufficient sunlight to get to the intercrops
2) In any plant spacing it is necessary to allow for the Jatropha to maximise soil nutrient and water usage so at some point your intercrop is going to impede on maximum Jatropha yields
3) Where Jatorpha requires high initial capital investment the maintenance phase costing si rather low, with intercropping you are brining in a high capital input per annum as these are typically annual crops and for this reason it negates some of the benefits of the low-cost Jatorpha running model (and also the fact that quite a bit of additional infrastructure is required)
4) If you take the plantation view on Jatorpha and space it sat 4X2 or 4X4 meters and mechanise some for the harvesting then when you start harvesting by year two you run out of space for the intercrop as your machines have to run in between the plantation
