Agricultural and Biological Research

Comparative performance of various maize (Zea mays L.) cultivars for yield and related attributes under semi-arid environment

Amjed Ali, Muhammad Adnan, Akhtar Abbas, Muhammad Arshad Javed, Muhammad Ehsan Safdar, Muhammad Asif , Muhammad Imran, Tauseef Iqbal, Fazal ur Rehman4, Rehan Ahmad

Maize (Zea mays L.) crop is used both for food and feed purpose. However, its yield level is much lower than the potential due to plant density, inadequate fertilizer use, inadequate water supply, weed infestation, insect pest attack and the selection of unsuitable cultivars under a given set of environments. Suitable hybrid improves the growth yield and quality of maize. Keeping this in view, the present study was therefore, designed to compare the production potential of different available maize cultivars (V1= Rafhan-2396, V2=Rafhan-2331, V3=Rafhan-2395, V4=Rafhan-2301, V5=Rafhan-2315, V6= Rafhan-2303, V7=Rafhan-3333, V8=FH-1898, V9=FH-1046, V10=FH-985, V11=DK-91) and to select a suitable one for maximum yield potential under the Agro-climatic conditions of Sargodha. The experiment was laid out in RCBD having three replications. Data regarding plant population at harvest, days to tasseling, days to silking, plant height at maturity (cm), number of cobs per plant, number of grains per cob, number of grain rows per cob, grain weight per cob (g), cob length (cm), 1000-grain weight (g), grain yield (kg ha-1), biological yield (kg ha-1), harvest index (%) and grain to pith ratio was taken with standard procedure. Results of the experiment indicated that maximum plant population at harvest (200.67), number of cobs per plant (1.30), cob length (20.57 cm), number of rows per cob (20), number of grains per cob (611.67), 1000-grain weight (263.87 g), grain weight per cob (163.23 g), grain yield (6920 kg ha-1), biological yield (19687 kg ha-1), harvest index (36.72%), grain pith ratio (5.17) were obtained from DK-919. In view of the above results, it can be concluded that maize hybrid DK-919 has better potential for grain yield as compared to other hybrids.