PLANTING DENSITIES IMPART VARIANCE IMPACT ON KERNEL PROPERTIES AND SOME QUALITY PARAMETERS IN SOME MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) HYBRIDS

Abstract

Climate change scenario has revitalized necessity to optimize agronomic management practices for boosting cereals productivity and nutritional quality. To observe the growth and quality attribute of maize hybrids under various planting densities and in order to sort out the most suitable plant population, a field experiment was conducted at the Research Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Mustafa Kemal University during 2018. Six maize hybrids viz. DKC 6589, Carella, Pioneer 1921, 70 May 82, Cadiz and Bolson were grown using five planting densities (9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 plants m2). The experiment was laid out in split plot arrangement with three replications. Maize hybrids and planting densitides were placed in main plots and sub plots, respectively. Growth characteristics like ear length, weight and diameter, and quality trauts like protein, stach and oil content in grains were determined as response variables. The results revealed that increasing plant densities gradually reduced the growth paramters including ear length, weight and diamter. While, quality traits such as starch and oil contents of basal, middle and tip kernels were increased with the increase in plant densities, but the protein ratio was decreased. The genotypes mean values indicated that 70 May 82 and Carella remained superior for ear length, weight and ear dimater respectively. In contrast, Pioneer 1921 and Bolson outformed other hybrids as far as starch and oil contents were concerned.