MAIZE GROWTH, YIELD FORMATION AND WATER-NITROGEN USAGE IN RESPONSE TO VARIED IRRIGATION AND NITROGEN SUPPLY UNDER SEMI-ARID CLIMATE

Enhancement of resource use efficiencies and crop productivity in sustainable agriculture are important especially in low-input production systems. This experiment was planned to evaluate the performance of maize under different water and nitrogen levels. Three irrigation treatments i.e., I1= three leaf stage (V1), nine leaf stage (V2), tasseling (T) and milking stage (M); I2 = V1, V2, T, M and dough stage (R1), I3 = V1, V2, T, M, R1 and blister stage (R2) were applied with 70 mm application depth with different nitrogen application rates i.e., 0, 150, 200 and 250 kg N ha(-1). Results revealed that maximum growth i.e., plant height, leaf area index (LAI), crop growth rate (CGR), cob length and diameter as well as yield and yield components i.e., grains rows/cob, grains/row, grains/cob, grain weight/cob, 100-grain weight, grain yield, biological yield and harvest index, water and nitrogen use efficiencies as well as transpiration and photosynthetic activities were recorded at 13 with 250 kg N ha-1. However, increased irrigation and nitrogen application rates delayed days to tasseling, silking and maturity. Conclusively, six irrigations (I-3) with 250 kg N ha-1 can be adopted as the best input levels to get maximum maize yield under semi-arid regions. In future both these inputs may be used as water and nitrogen based agricultural best management practices (BMPs) in regions with similar type of environmental conditions.