Effect of Dates of Sowing and Integrated Nutrient Management Practices on Growth, Yield Attributes and Yield of Hybrid Maize Under Rainfed Vertisol of Tamil Nadu Solaimalai A.1, Arunkumar N.1,*, Jeyakumar M.1, Jawahar D.1 1All India Coordinated Research Project on Agrometeorology, Agricultural Research Station, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Kovilpatti-628 501 *Email: arunan.agri@gmail.com
Online published on 23 December, 2016. Abstract A field experiment was conducted during Rabi seasons of 2010–11 and 2011–12 at Agricultural Research Station, Kovilaptti to find out the effect of sowing windows (D1: 39, D2: 40, D3: 41 and D4: 42nd standard meteorological weeks) and stress management practices (F1: 100% RDF (40: 20: 0 kg NPK/ha), F2: 100% RDF + FYM @12.5 t/ha + Biofertilizer, F3: 75% RDF, F4: 75% RDF+FYM+ Biofertilizer, F5: 50% RDF, F6: 50% RDF + FYM + Biofertilizer) on growth, yield attributes, yield of maize under rainfed conditions. Among the sowing windows tried, 39th standard week sown crop registered higher growth parameters, yield characters, grain yield (4490 kg/ha) and stover yield (7863 kg/ha) which was 15.90% higher than 42nd standard week sown crop. Maximum temperature of 26.8–38.4ÚC, minimum temperature of 13.7–21.9ÚC, relative humidity of 84.0–96.0% and well distributed rainfall of 545–570 mm was found optimum to get higher yield in hybrid maize during rabi season. Application of 75% RDF+ FYM @ 12.5 t/ha + biofertilizers treatment recorded higher grain yield (5610 kg/ha) and stover yield (9800 kg/ha) which was comparable with application of 100% RDF alone (4726 and 8282 kg/ha of grain and stover yields respectively) thereby saving of 25% RDF through chemical fertilizers. Control (no manure, fertilizers and biofertilizers) registered lower grain (2918 kg/ha) and stover (5132 kg/ha) yields. Top Keywords Maize, crop weather relation, GDD, HTU, HUE, INM practices. Top |