Abstract
Defoliation was the major factor which directly affected to maize seed yield and quality basis on source-sink relationship. Thus, the objectives were to study the effect of source-sink balance management on corn seed vigor and storability and to determine the effect of defoliation treatments on maize yield, yield components and produced seed germination traits. The experiment was arranged basis on Split-Plot in Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications. Main plot was the pattern of leave cutting with 5 levels: D1 = control, (without defoliating), D2 = complete defoliation, D3 = defoliating only under the ear, D4 = remain 2 top leaves, D5 = remain ear leaf. Sup-plot was leaf cutting dates which were C1 = 7 days after silking, C2 = 10 days after silking, C3 = 13 days after silking and C4 = 16 days after silking. Complete defoliation severely reduced ear weight, row number per ear, seed number per ear and 100 - seed weight (P<5%). Defoliation treatments had much more significantly affected on produced seed germination and seed vigor traits. Leaf defoliation intensity and leaf position affected total dry matter. Conclusion, the leaf defoliation only below ears was useful for source-sink balance management, because it promoted the seed qualities and vigor following to principle of parasitic sink elimination.
Highlights
Source capacity was determined by photosynthetic activity which related to availability of carbohydrate reserves (Uhart and Andrade, 1991)
Maybe it was due to that ear leaf acted as a parasitic sink for ear growth at grain filling period because it was in middle part of maize stem shade on it
A decreasing of source in the post-flowering source/sink ratio could reduce final kernel weight dramatically (Borrás et al, 2004)
Summary
Source capacity was determined by photosynthetic activity which related to availability of carbohydrate reserves (Uhart and Andrade, 1991). During effective grain filling period, the interaction between source capacity and sink strength (i.e., the source/sink ratio) would result in variation of final grain weight (Borrás and Otegui, 2001). Defoliation was led to minimum seeds yield because of decrease in seed weight and filled grain percent (Gifford et al, 1984). Distance of leaves and ear which participant in photosynthetic efficiency were important in a slight defoliation. Defoliation treatments imposed when the numbers of grains had been established to reduce the source/sink ratio results in a sharp decreasing of soluble carbohydrates in stems (Uhart and Andrade, 1995)
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