EFFECT OF AGRONOMIC MANAGEMENTS ON GROWTH AND YIELD OF MAIZE

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University farm, Dhaka to investigate the effect of agronomic managements on growth and yield of two maize varieties during the period from November, 2018 to April, 2019. The experiment comprised as two factors having two varieties (V 1: Khoibhutta ; V 2 : BARI Hybrid Maize 9) in the main plots and seven agronomic managements (M 1: no management, M 2: no fertilizer application but all other managements, M 3: no weeding but all other managements, M 4: no irrigation but all other managements, M 5: no pesticides but all other managements, M 6: no earthing up but all other managements and M 7: all recommended management) in the sub-plots under split-plot design with three replications. The results indicated that plant height reduced by 63 %, 34.28 %, 15.26 %, and 9.97%, respectively for no management, no irrigation, no fertilizer application and no weeding than recommended management. More severity caused by them was found on yield parameters. Among all the treatment combinations, the highest yield (12.60 t ha -1 ) was recorded from BARI Hybrid Maize 9 treated with all recommended management and in case of Khoibhutta. The highest yield was recorded (5.03 t ha ) when remained under proper management. The highest yield reduction in BARI Hybrid Maize 9 was 91.32 % in no management that followed by 41.93 %, 41.19 %, 10.36 %, 6.16 % and 4.72 %, respectively for no fertilizer application, no irrigation, no weeding, no earthing up and no pesticides, whereas for the other variety Khoibhutta yield reduction was 89.63 % for no management, followed by 55.26 %, 36.37 %, 22.46 %, 10.32 % and 4.11 % for no irrigation, no fertilizer application, no weeding, no earthing up and no pesticides. Regarding variety, BARI Hybrid Maize 9 showed 161.37 % higher yield capacity over Khoibhutta because of its genetic potentiality. However, irrespective of variety, no management reduced 86% grain yield of maize that was 45.21 %, 40.34 %, 13.92 %, 7.35 % and 4.55 %, respectively, for no irrigation, no fertilizer application, no weeding, no earthing up and no pesticides. All over damage caused by pest was recorded less in this experiment as pest visibility was not there as much high.