Agronomic performance of grain sorghum in different spatial arrangements

Abstract

Grain sorghum has been cultivated extensively in the Central-West region of Brazil in succession with soybean, since the species tolerates the low rainfall conditions recorded during this growing season. Phytotechnological adjustments for sorghum are still necessary in order to exploit the maximum yield potential of the crop. In this context, altering the plant distribution may result in better utilization of the growing area with a consequent increase in grain yield. On this basis, field experiments were conducted with two grain sorghum hybrids, replicated in two different locations, in order to evaluate the effect of the spatial arrangement of plants on the agronomic performance of grain sorghum. The design was a randomized complete block design in a 2 x 4 factorial scheme, with five replications. The factors consisted of two row spacings (0.50 and 0.25 m) and four plant densities: 120, 180, 240, and 300 thousand plants ha-1. The sorghum hybrids used were 1G244® and 1G100®. At harvest, morphological characteristics, yield components, and grain yields were evaluated. Row spacing did not influence the characteristics evaluated except for the plant height of for both hybrids, in addition to the stem diameter, tillering, and mass of a thousand grains for 1G100®. The increase in plant density provided an increase in grain yield, being the highest number of panicles per area the most expressive component for this behavior.