Abstract
The national average yield of maize is by far lower than the world average yield. Plant density is one of the factors that affect yield. Therefore, knowing the appropriate agronomic practices are paramount importance to maximize maize production in Ethiopia. A field experiment was conducted under rainfed conditions in 2015 and 2016 during the main cropping season at Haramaya to determine the effects of inter and intra row spacing on growth, yield components, and yield of hybrid maize varieties. The experiment consisted of the factorial combinations of two hybrid maize varieties (“BH-661” and “BH-QPY-545”), two inter-row spacing (65 and 75 cm) and three intra-row spacing (25, 30 and 35 cm) in a 3 × 2 × 2 factorial in a randomized complete block design experiment with three replications of each treatment combination. Aboveground dry biomass yield and grain yield were influenced by interaction effect of inter row spacing, intra row spacing and year. The highest aboveground dry biomass yield (31.36 t·ha-1) and harvest index (47%) were obtained for varieties BH-661 and BH-QPY-545 in 2016 and 2015, respectively. The highest aboveground dry biomass yield (31.29 t·ha-1) and grain yield (11.67 t·ha-1) were obtained in the combination of 75 cm × 25 cm in 2016 cropping season. Therefore, it can be concluded that optimum inter and intra row spacing combination in the study area for the maximum grain yield was 75 cm × 25 cm for both varieties under adequate amount and regular distribution of rainfall.
Highlights
Maize (Zea mays L.) is a member of the grass family, Poaceae
A combined analysis of variance depicted that the maximum leaf area index (5.32) was obtained from variety BH-QPY-545 at closer inter (65 cm) and closestintra (25 cm) row spacing, whereas the minimum leaf area index (3.18) was attained from variety BH-661 at wider inter (75 cm) and widestintra (35 cm) row spacing (Table 2)
The possible reason for the highest leaf area index for variety BH-QPY-545 at the narrowest inter and intra-row spacing might be due to more number of leaves produced owing to
Summary
Maize is one of the most important cereal crops in the world. It ranks third in world production after wheat and rice [1]. Ethiopia is the fourth largest maize producing country in Africa, and first in the East African region in terms of production [2]. The 2017/18 Meher season post-harvest crop production survey indicated that at the national level, 16.79% (about 2,128,948.91 hectares), of the land area was covered by maize and production of grain was about 27.43% or 83,958,87.24 tons with an average yield of 3.9 t∙ha−1 [4]. Maize covered an area of about 43,078.05 ha; production of grain was 110,612 tons with an average grain yield of 2.57 t∙ha−1 in the Zone [4]
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