**6.3. Alley cropping with cover crops**

Alley cropping is not widely practiced in Ghana but this is found in few places in the southern part of Ghana. It is similar to agro-forestry systems where fast growing shrubs or trees such as pigeon pea is planted in alleys while cover crops such as *Mucuna* or *Cal‐ apogonium* spp are planted to protect the soil from erosion and for weed control. Afetr harvesting the pigeon pea in the alleys, the biomass is harvested and used as mulch on the cover crops where maize is planted directly in the mulch. In this system, nitrogen is fixed in the soil from atmosphere by both the pigeon pea and the cover crops. Also, the decay of the biomass from the pigeon pea goes to enhance the N status of the soil which goes to improve the yield of the maize. Soil water is conserved and weeds are controlled effectively under this system.
