Abstract
Many have reported that application of Silicon (Si) can alleviate environmental stress and increase grain yield of maize plants under stresses. This study aimed to examine the effects of adding organic or silicate fertilizer on several varieties of maize in rainfed area during a dry season, by conducting field experiment designed with Randomized Complete Block Design testing two treatment factors, i.e. maize varieties (V1= Bisi-2, V2= Srikandi, V3= Pioneer-27) and fertilizer combinations (F1= NPK only, F2= NPK+organic, F3= NPK+silicate). Results indicated that there were significant effects of fertilizer combinations and varieties on growth and yield of several maize varieties, in which the mean values were highest in maize plants fertilized with NPK+silicate fertilizers, except harvest index. Among the varieties, Pioneer-27 (hybrid) yielded the highest followed by Srikandi (open-pollinated) and Bisi-2 (hybrid) yielded the lowest grain weight per plant. However, there were interaction effects of the treatment factors, meaning that there were different responses between varieties of maize to application of organic or silicate fertilizer in addition to NPK fertilizer in terms of plant height, AGR (average growth rate) of plant height and dry grain yield per plant. Grain yield per plant of Pioneer-27 could be increased with application of organic (150.79 g/plant) or silicate (189.43 g/plant) compared with NPK only (133.99 g/plant), while that of Srikandi and Bisi-2 could only be increased by addition of silicate (113.83 g/plant in Srikandi and 103 g/plant in Bisi-2) compared with NPK only (93.77 g/plant in Srikandi and 82.59 g/plant in Bisi-2).
Highlights
Maize is one of the multifunction crops, in which almost all parts of the plant can be used as food, feed, or fuel sources
The organic fertilizer used in this experiment was in the form of “bokashi”, i.e. EM-4 fermented cattle manure, while the silicate fertilizer, in Indonesia was sold as granule “AGROSIL”, which was from the POS Ceramics Co, Ltd, Korea, with 25% soluble Silicic Acid, 2% Silicic Acid Magnesia, and 40% Alkalinity
Based on the interaction effect of the treatment factors on plant height at 8 weeks after seeding (WAS) it an be seen from Fig. 1 that fertilizer combinations did not affect plant height of Bisi-2 variety but plant height of Srikandi and Pioneer-27 varieties was significantly different, i.e. higher due to addition of organic or silicate fertilizer in addition to the NPK fertilizers
Summary
Maize is one of the multifunction crops, in which almost all parts of the plant can be used as food, feed, or fuel sources. When nitrogen fertilizer was applied four times to maize plants fertilized with cattle manure, application of P and K fertilizers twice resulted in significantly higher grain yield compared with application of P and K fertilizers only once as the basalt fertilizers (Wangiyana et al, 2010). Reported that application of cattle manure of 10 ton/ha in addition to the recommended dose of NPK fertilizers significantly increased growth, grain yield, and other yield components of maize, especially weight of 1000 grains and harvest index. Application of manure in addition to nitrogen fertilizer was reported to significantly increase maize grain yield in the Sub-Saharan Africa both under low and medium fertility soils (Zingore, 2011). This study aimed to examine the effect of application of organic or Si fertilizer in addition to NPK on growth and yield of several varieties of maize in rainfed land of East Lombok, Indonesia, during a dry season
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