INFLUENCE OF FIRST COB REMOVAL ON THE YIELD OF COMPOSITE AND HYBRID MAIZE

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at the Farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka, Bangladesh during the period from November 2013 to March 2014 to study the influence of first cob removal on the yield of composite and hybrid maize. The experiment comprised as two factors. Factor A: Cob removal- 2 levels; C0: No cob removal and C1: Cob removal. -Factor B: Maize variety - 6; V1: Baby corn; V2: Khaibhutta; V3: BARI bhutta 6; V4: BARI hybrid bhutta 7; V5: BARI hybrid bhutta 9 and V6: BARI sweet corn. The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design with three replications. Data on different growth parameters, yield attributes and yield were recorded and analyzed. The result revealed that higher grain yield (11.50 t ha-1) was recorded from the cob removal treatments which was 9.73% higher than no cob removal (10.48 t ha-1). BARI hybrid bhutta 9 gave the highest grain yield (12.10 t ha-1) which was similar with BARI hybrid bhutta 7 and gave 20.75% higher grain yield than Khaibhutta. The interaction effect showed that BARI hybrid bhutta 9 in combination with cob removal gave the highest grain yield (12.24 t ha-1), which was 48.90% higher than the treatment combination of BARI sweet corn with no cob removal. Again, the treatment with no cob removal gave only the grain yield at harvest but the treatment with cob removal produced baby corn at early stage and at the same time, the grain yield at harvest. So, the total return was higher for all varieties in combination with cob removals than the treatments with no cob removal. As a result, if the cob removal practices were adapted by the farmers, they can get additional income from selling out baby corn with the cob removal at early stage and grain yield at harvest.