EFFECT OF DIFFERENT PHOSPHORUS LEVELS ON THE GROWTH AND YIELD OF MAIZE

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out at the research field of Crop Physiology and Ecology department, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur during April to July 2018 to evaluate the performance of two maize cultivars as influenced by different levels of phosphorus. The experiment comprised of two factors such as two maize varieties (PAC 559 and PAC 999) and five phosphorus levels, P0: 0 kg P/ha (control), P1: 25 kg P/ha, P2: 50 kg P/ha, P3: 75 kg P/ha, P100: 100 kg P/ha. The experiment was set up in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Observations were made on height of plant, number of leaves per plant, leaf area, dry weight per plant, days to tasseling, days to silking, days to maturity, cob length, number of cobs per plant, number of grains/cob, 1000-grain weight, grain yield and stover yield. There was a significant variation in all the parameters between the cultivars due to different phosphorus levels. Both PAC 559 and PAC 99 showed better performance in respect of grain yield and yield contributing characters due to use of higher levels of phosphorus fertilizer. Application of 100 kg P ha-1 with PAC 559 is the best combination for obtaining higher yield attributes and yield of hybrid maize and can be recommended for the farmers of Dinajpur region for production