The effect of soil Ph and precipitation variability during the growing season on maize hybrid grain yield in a 17 year long-term experiment

Abstract

We established a multifactoral long-term field experiment at the Latokep experimental site of the University of Debrecen (Debrecen, Hungary), on mid-heavy calcareous chernozem soil in 1984, using experimental data from 17 years (1990–2008). We examined the extent to which soil fertility affects maize yield under natural conditions (without fertilisation). We analysed the effect of precipitation in the winter period (from the harvest of the previous crop (maize) until sowing (i.e. October–March)) and the growing season (i.e. April–September) on yield and we evaluated yield per FAO group. We examined the joint effect of crop year and hybrid maturity groups on maize yield; then we evaluated how hybrid maturity groups per crop year and wet and dry years per ripening group affected maize yield. It was shown that the pH value of soil significantly affected yield and also that there was a strong positive correlation between pH value and yield (r = 0.81) at a 1% significance level. The correlation between the two variables is described by a linear regression line. The slope shows that a 0.1 soil pH increase results in a 510 kg ha-1 maize yield increase on average. The correlation between the amount of precipitation during the growing season and maize yield is average, positive (r = 0.718) and linear. Based on the parameters of the estimated regression line – within non-fertilised conditions – 1 mm increase of precipitation resulted in a 9 kg ha-1 increase in yield. The analysis of the joint effect of hybrid maturity groups and crop year on yield showed that crop year determines standard deviation six times more than hybrid maturity groups, whereas the effect their interaction was not significant.