EFFECT OF POLYTHENE MULCH AND IRRIGATION FREQUENCY ON GROWTH AND YIELD OF WHITE MAIZE

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University farm to study the effect of polythene mulch and irrigation frequencies on the growth and yield of white maize (PSC-121) during rabi 2015-16. Polythene mulching had two levels; without polythene (P 0 ) and with polythene (P). Four irrigation frequencies constituted the irrigation treatment (I 0 ii

= No irrigation, I 1 = One irrigation at 15 DAS, I 2 = Two irrigations at 15 and 30 DAS, I 3 = Three irrigations at 15, 30 and 60 DAS and I 4 = Four irrigations at 15, 30, 60 and 90 DAS). Polythene was applied between two adjacent rows of maize following each irrigation. The trial was conducted following split-plot design assigning polythene mulch in the main plot and irrigations in the subplot. Results showed that polythene application showed 35% increase yield over without polythene (6.970 t ha -1 ). Likewise irrigation treatments I 3 and I 4 had statistically similar seed yields (10.540 and 10.610 t ha -1 ) which were significantly higher than others irrigation treatments. The combination treatments PI 3 and PI 4 showed significantly higher seed yields (12.72 t ha -1 and 12.810 t ha -1 respectively) than other treatment combinations which may be attributed to the increased dry matter, leaf area index, number of grains per cob (500.3 and 510.1 respectively) and 100-seed weight (35.86 g and 36.33 g respectively).