Effect of Zinc Application on Growth and Yield of Summer Maize (Zea mays)

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at the Instructional-cum-Research (ICR) Farm, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat during the summer season of 2019 to find out the effect of zinc on growth and yield through soil and foliar application. The experiment consisted of nine treatments viz., 0 kg/ha ZnSO4 (Control), 10 kg/ha ZnSO4 soil application, 20 kg/ha ZnSO4 soil application, 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS, 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS and 45 DAS, 10 kg/ha ZnSO4 ­soil application + 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS, 10 kg/ha ZnSO4 ­soil application + 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS and 45 DAS, 20 kg/ha ZnSO4 ­soil application + 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS and 20 kg/ha ZnSO4 ­soil application + 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS and 45 DAS. The treatments were laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) and replicated thrice. The soil of the experimental site was sandy loam in texture, acidic in reaction (pH 5.4), medium in organic carbon (0.64%), low in available N (198.04 kg/ha), medium in available P2O5 (24.98kg/ha), low in available K2O (187.30 kg/ha) and low in available zinc (0.56 mg/kg). Experimental findings revealed that growth attributing characters like plant height was recorded in the combined application of 20 kg/ha ZnSO4 ­soil application + 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS and 45 DAS. The Leaf Area Index (LAI) and yield attributing characters like weight of the cob with and without husk, number of grain rows per cob, number of grains per row, number of grains per cob as well as grain yield (43.05 q/ha) were recorded the highest in the combined application of 20 kg/ha ZnSO4 soil application + 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS and 45 DAS which was at par with the combined application of 20 kg/ha ZnSO4 soil application + 0.5% ZnSO4 foliar spray at 25 DAS.

Assessment of Maize Crop Evapotranspiration Using Eddy Covariance Flux Tower Weather Data

“…An adequate amount of water applied at plant requirement promotes the plant's physiological parameters while the insufficient application, limits the plant growth. Similar results were reported by Ahirwar et al [13] and Kiran et al [14]. An increase in irrigation levels was found to be associated with an increase in plant height, as reported in various studies [15 and 16].…”

DUS-Based Morphological Profiling and Categorization of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes

“…In the pursuit of breaking the yield plateau and achieving sustainable gains, plant breeders are confronted with the necessity of incorporating diverse germplasm lines into their breeding programmes [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. This imperative is underlined by the need for systematic characterization and evaluation of Cicer species, with the aim of focusing target traits [40].…”