Sowing Dates Effect on Production of High Yielding Maize Varieties
Sowing Dates Effect on Production of High Yielding Maize Varieties
Waqas Liaqat1, Mohammad Akmal1* and Jawad Ali
ABSTRACT
Maize, an important staple food crop, is grown on largest cropped area every year for food and fodder in Pakistan. Nonetheless, its yield is low with almost half of the national average in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The study aims to find outoptimum sowing time for a suitable variety (OPV or hybrid) in Peshawar. Field experiment was conducted at Agronomy Research Farm, the University of Agriculture Peshawar during summer 2016. Experiment was a randomized complete block with split plots in three replications. Factor one was sowing dates (June 18, 30, July 15, 29 and August 5) as main plot treatment. The second factor was maize selected varieties (i.e. Azam, Jalal, Babar, CS-200, CS-220, SB-92K97, SB-909, SB-989, and SB-292) as subplot treatment. Experimental unit was 3.5 m x 3.6 m accommodating 5 rows at 0.7 m distance. Fertilizer was applied 200, 120, 80 kg ha-1 (N, P and K) to Hybrids and 120, 90, 60 kg ha-1 (N, P, K) to open pollinated varieties (OPV) during seed bed preparation. Data analysis showed that emergence m-2 affected by varieties only. Both crop phenology (i.e. days to tasseling, silking & maturity) as well as morphology (i.e. plant height, ear height, including ear length) was affected (p<0.05)by sowing dates. Likewise, yield traits (i.e. rows per ear, grains per ear, thousand grain weight) were also adversely affected by sowing dates, which decreases both biomass and grain yield. Varieties did differ in phenology (i.e. emergence, silking, tasseling, maturity) and morphology (i.e. height, leaf area, ear height, cobs per plant and its weight) that showed differences in biomass and grain yields. The study suggested that a delay in sowing of maize crop from June in the region after Wheat or Berseem harvesting has a significant decrease (p<0.05) in production. Nonetheless, sowing made in August is unable to mature grains properly. The yield losses rate relatively expands from July 15 onwards for maize in Peshawar valley. Sowing maize later from June month in season is superior to opt for hybrid maize variety SB-909 and SB-92K97 in the Peshawar region.
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