Agronomic response of a maize hybrid (Zea mays L.) at different planting densities

Abstract

The experiment was carried out at the “La María” Campus of the State Technical University of Quevedo, located in the Mocache canton, province of Los Ríos. This consisted of the establishment of experimental lots of the simple maize hybrid called “Centella”, classified as high yielding and medium segmentation, subjected to different planting densities, which corresponded to the following treatments: T1 (60 x 25 cm), T2 (70 x 25 cm) and T3 (80 x 25 cm). A Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with five replications was used to evaluate them; the comparison between means was carried out using Tukey's test (P≤0.05). The variables studied were: plant height (cm), stem diameter (cm), ear insertion height (cm), number of grain rows in the ear, ear length (cm), ear diameter (cm), weight of 100 grains, grain yield (kg/ha), phenology and economic analysis. The treatments showed statistical similarity in all agronomic performance variables and most of the productive parameters, except for grain yield, where T1 stood out over the other treatments with a record of 9282.21 kg/ha.