Performance of White Maize under Different Spacing and Integrated Fertilizer Management

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during December, 2017 to May, 2018 at the Agronomy field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka to evaluate the performance of white maize variety under different spacing and integrated fertilizer management. The experiment comprised two different factors; (1) two plant spacing viz. S1 (60 cm × 20 cm) and S2 (40 cm × 20 cm) and (2) four levels of integrated fertilizer application viz. T1: All chemical fertilizer (recommended dose), T2: maize straw compost +½ of recommended dose,T3: cowdung+½ of recommended dose and T4: vermicompost +½ of recommended dose. The experiment was set up in split plot design with three replications. Results revealed that both the individual and the interaction treatments had effect on different growth and yield parameters of white maize. In respect of the spacing effect, the wider spacing S1 showed higher plant height, number of leaves plant-1, cob length, cob circumference, number of grains cob-1, shelling percentage, 100 grains weight and harvest index where S2 showed higher grain yield. The integrated fertilizer had significant effect on different growth and yield parameters of white maize. In respect of the integrated fertilizer effect, the highest values in plant height, number of leaves plant-1, leaf area index and crop growth rate, cob length, cob circumference, number of grains cob-1, shelling percentage, 100 grains weight, grain yield, stover yield and biological yield were highest with T3 whereas, the lowest corresponding values were recorded from T2. Among the interaction treatments, higher seed yield was obtained with the interaction treatment S2T3 (10.01 t ha-1) while S1T2 showed significantly the lowest seed yield (5.27 t ha-1). The highest seed yield was mostly attributed to the number of grains per cob (328-433) and 100 seed weights (29.67-33.33 g).