STUDY ON MORPHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAIZE UNDER DIFFERENT NUTRIENT LEVEL

Abstract

The present investigation was undertaken to study the morpho-physiological characteristics of maize (Zea mays L.) under different nutrient level. Four hybrid maize varieties viz. NK-40, Pacific-984, 900M and Pinacle were used as study material. The crop were cultivated under three nutrient level i.e. Nutrient level-1 (Farmer’s fertilizer management practice), Nutrient level -2 (BARI fertilizer recommendation) and Nutrient level-3 (Nutrient Manager recommendation based on higher yield). The experiment was conducted in a two factors Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. In phenology, the number of days for attaining different growth stages was affected by different nutrient level and varieties. In Nutrient level-2 condition, the varieties took longer time to attain their tassel emergence stage, silking stage, cob initiation stage and maturity stage than the Nutrient level-1 and Nutrient level-3. For seedling emergence, each variety needed 4 days under all the nutrient level. Under nutrient level-2 the variety NK-40 took longer time to attain all the phenological stage followed by 900M and Pacific-984 varieties. Variety Pinacle required the shortest time for attaining 4-leaf, 8-leaf, 12-leaf, tassel emergence, cob initiation, silking and maturity stages. Under Nutrient level-2 condition, all the varieties showed higher relative leaf water content (RLWC) and moisture retention capacity (MRC) compared to Nutrient level-1 and Nutrient level-3/The combined effect of Nutrient level and maize varieties differed significantly in the number of green leaf at dry silk stage, length of leaf blade, length of leaf sheath, length of tassel, plant height, number of cob per plant, cob length, cob diameter, number of row per cob, grains per cob, single cob weight, weight of grain per cob, 100 seed weight and grain yield. From the overall result, it was observed that hybrid variety NK-40 under nutrient level-2 showed best performance in those physiomorphological traits compared to other three varieties (Pacific-984, 900 M and Pinacle) under different level.