Soil amendments improved growth and production of maize (zea mays l.) under irrigated and rainfed condition in semiarid region of northwest, Pakistan

摘要

Poor growth and production in maize (Zea mays L.) under irrigated and rain-fed condition is a serious concern world-wide. Soil amendments could be an effective approach in increasing maize growth and production in irrigated and rain-fed conditions. Therefore field trials were conducted during summer 2011-2012 at New Developmental Farm of The University Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan. The field experiments were layout in randomized complete block design having three replications. To efficiently utilize the already scarce water within the cultivated field, two way agronomic approaches were adopted in this study. The first one relates to irrigation. An irrigation levels that is designated as full irrigation as per the farmers’ practice where six irrigations are normally applied and the other experiment was designated under rain-fed conditions. The second approach was the application of soil amendments to retain the moisture within root zone. Both conventional (FYM (10 t ha-1), crop residue (wheat straw 10 t ha-1) and non-conventional (gypsum (1000 kg ha-1), qemisoyl (10 kg ha-1) and humic acid (12 kg ha-1) were added as soil amendments. The results of the 2nd year research shows that the plots grow under irrigated condition improved growth and production of maize crop as compared to rain-fed conditions. Plots treated with 10 tons FYM ha-1 produced maximum LA (317 cm2), LA plant-1 (3329 cm2), LAI (2.74), CGR (30.4 g m-2 d-1), NAR (2.48 g cm-2 d-1), thousand grain weight (287.4 g),grain yield (3896 kg ha-1) and biomass yield (14345 kg ha-1) as compared with other soil amendments but statistically at par such as humic acid. FYM had increased grain and biomass yield by 15 and 46% respectively over control. Adequate and well distributed rainfall in the 2nd year caused to produce more LA (0.44%), LA plant-1 (4.8%), CGR (0.03%), grain yield (2.6%) and biomass yield (5.3%) over first year. It can be concluded that that plots treated with FYM or humic acid under irrigated condition was better than other treatments.