Maize Tassel Research Articles

Influence of foliar urea on the phenology, growth and yield of maize applied at various growth stages

Field trials were carried out for three consecutive years to investigate the influence of foliar urea on maize (Zea mays L.) applied at different growth stages at the Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI), Pirsabak Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan during 2014–16. The experiment was conducted in RCBD with split plot arrangement using four urea levels (N1 = 0, N2 = 3, N3 = 5 and N4 = 7% urea) assigned to main plots and six application timings [AS1 = V7, AS2 =V10, AS3 = R1 Silking, AS4 = V7+V10 (foliar urea applied at both stages), AS5 = V7+R1 and AS6 = V10+R1] allotted to subplots. Phenological characteristics of maize (tasseling, silking, and maturity) were significantly delayed with foliar urea spray @ 7% and when applied at both V7+V10 stages respectively. Earlier days to tasseling, silking, and maturity were recorded in foliar urea control plots and with foliar urea application when sprayed only at R1 stage. Leaf area, plant height, cob length, grains cob-1, 1000 grain weight, stover and grain yields were significantly improved with 7% urea application. Maize growth and yield were significantly enhanced when foliar urea was applied at both V7+V10 stages respectively. It is concluded that urea foliar feeding @ 7% when applied at both V7+V10 stages enhanced and prolonged vegetative growth period of maize and resulted in increased grain yield and yield components of maize. Keywords: Maize; Foliar urea; Application stage; Growth; Yield and yield components http://dx.doi.org/10.19045/bspab.2017.60020

Towards fine-grained maize tassel flowering status recognition: Dataset, theory and practice

Maize is one of the three main cereal crops of the world. Accurately knowing its tassel flowering status can help to analyze the growth status and adjust the farming operation accordingly. At the current stage, acquiring the tassel flowering status mainly depends on human observation. Actually, it is costly and subjective, especially for the large-scale quantitative analysis under the in-field environment. To alleviate this, we propose an automatic maize tassel flowering status (i.e., non-flowering, partially-flowering and fully-flowering) recognition method via the computer vision technology in this paper. In particular, this task is formulated as a fine-grained image categorization problem. More specifically, scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) is first extracted as the low-level visual descriptor to characterize the maize flower. Fisher vector (FV) is then applied to execute feature encoding on SIFT to generate more discriminative flowering status representation. To further leverage the performance, a novel metric leaning method termed large-margin dimensionality reduction (LMDR) is proposed. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, a flowering status dataset that consists of 3000 images is built. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach goes beyond the state-of-the-art by large margins (at least 8.3%). The dataset and source code are made available online.

Complex genetic architecture underlies maize tassel domestication.

Summary Maize (Zea mays) tassels underwent profound morphological changes during maize domestication and improvement. Although a number of genes affecting maize inflorescence development have been identified, the genetic basis of the morphological changes in maize tassels since domestication is not well understood.Here, using a large population of 866 maize‐teosinte BC 2S3 recombinant inbred lines genotyped using 19 838 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, we performed high‐resolution quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping for five tassel morphological traits.We showed that the five tassel traits were associated with different genetic architecture features. Known genes for maize inflorescence development identified by mutagenesis were significantly enriched in the tassel trait QTLs, and many of these genes, including ramosa1 (ra1), barren inflorescence2 (bif2), unbranched2 (ub2), zea floricaula leafy2 (zfl2) and barren stalk fastigiate1 (baf1), showed evidence of selection. An in‐depth nucleotide diversity analysis at the bif2 locus identified strong selection signatures in the 5′‐regulatory region. We also found that several known flowering time genes co‐localized with tassel trait QTLs. A further association analysis indicated that the maize photoperiod gene ZmCCT was significantly associated with tassel size variation. Using near‐isogenic lines, we narrowed down a major‐effect QTL for tassel length, qTL9‐1, to a 513‐kb physical region.These results provide important insights into the genetic architecture that controls maize tassel evolution.

Effects of rainfall intensity on splash erosion and its spatial distribution under maize canopy

Splash erosion of soil particles by raindrops impacting a soil surface is the initiating mechanism of water erosion. To evaluate the effects of splash erosion on maize, spatial distribution of rainfall intensity and splash erosion rate were measured under maize cover in different growth stages. The relation between splash erosion rate under the maize canopy and rainfall intensity was analyzed. The results indicated that, the average rainfall intensity under the maize canopy gradually increased with the increase in rainfall intensity during the whole growth stage, and splash erosion rate under the maize canopy showed the same change. The average rainfall intensity and splash erosion rate under rainfall of 2.0 mm min−1 were significantly higher than those of the rainfall of 1.0 mm min−1. Under the same rainfall intensity, the minimum of splash erosion rate appeared in the jointing stage, while the maximum appeared in the tasseling stage. Compared with the seedling stage, the average splash erosion rates of the jointing stage showed the reduction of 23.9, 24.2, and 41.1 % the corresponding rainfall of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 mm min−1, respectively, under the maize canopy. Under rainfall of 1.0 and 1.5 mm min−1, there was a significant negative correlation between rainfall intensity under the canopy and splash erosion rate of every spot at the maize tasseling stage. Under rainfall of 2.0 mm min−1, there was also a significant negative correlation between rainfall intensity and splash erosion rate under the canopy of every spot at maize seedling stage and mature stage. The distribution of splash erosion rate was concentrated at maize seedling stage and mature stage. However, the dispersion degree of splash erosion rate was obvious at jointing stage and tasseling stage of maize. Splash erosion rates showed great difference under the canopy at every period of maize growth. Under rainfall of 1.0 mm min−1, the high splash erosion rate appeared at two spots, while under rainfall of 1.5 and 2.0 mm min−1, splash erosion rate was only concentrated in a spot. This study would provide theoretical guidance for soil erosion control based on crop growth and coverage.

Region-based colour modelling for joint crop and maize tassel segmentation

Crop segmentation is a frequently occurring problem for computer vision applications in agriculture. Meanwhile, the fine-grained shape extraction of maize tassels is also an essential step in the detasselling and field-based phenotyping research. However, existing methods are usually dependent on category, which is hard to transfer to other cultivars with different colours. To address this, the goal of this study is to develop a general method that can process different colours simultaneously and that has good flexibility and expandability. Targeting maize, we proposed to segment jointly the crop and maize tassel. In particular, a novel joint segmentation dataset regarding crop and maize tassel (323 images with corresponding manually-annotated ground-truth images) is constructed, hoping that it can serve as a benchmark to facilitate related studies. Technically, a region-based approach that leverages the efficient graph-based segmentation algorithm and simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) is developed to generate region proposals. Also, we proposed to model colours with ensemble neural networks specific to each intensity, aiming to achieve robustness to illumination. In addition, two simple but effective strategies are devised to accelerate the colour statistics extraction and ensemble model prediction. The effectiveness and efficiency of our method are demonstrated on the two segmentation tasks, respectively. Results show that our method significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches on tassel segmentation, with average precision of 74.3%, and achieves comparable performance of 77.8% on the traditional crop segmentation even with the naivest colour feature. The dataset and source code are made available online.

Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria Inoculation to Enhance Vegetative Growth, Nitrogen Fixation and Nitrogen Remobilisation of Maize under Greenhouse Conditions.

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) may provide a biological alternative to fix atmospheric N2 and delay N remobilisation in maize plant to increase crop yield, based on an understanding that plant-N remobilisation is directly correlated to its plant senescence. Thus, four PGPR strains were selected from a series of bacterial strains isolated from maize roots at two locations in Malaysia. The PGPR strains were screened in vitro for their biochemical plant growth-promoting (PGP) abilities and plant growth promotion assays. These strains were identified as Klebsiella sp. Br1, Klebsiella pneumoniae Fr1, Bacillus pumilus S1r1 and Acinetobacter sp. S3r2 and a reference strain used was Bacillus subtilis UPMB10. All the PGPR strains were tested positive for N2 fixation, phosphate solubilisation and auxin production by in vitro tests. In a greenhouse experiment with reduced fertiliser-N input (a third of recommended fertiliser-N rate), the N2 fixation abilities of PGPR in association with maize were determined by 15N isotope dilution technique at two harvests, namely, prior to anthesis (D50) and ear harvest (D65). The results indicated that dry biomass of top, root and ear, total N content and bacterial colonisations in non-rhizosphere, rhizosphere and endosphere of maize roots were influenced by PGPR inoculation. In particular, the plants inoculated with B. pumilus S1r1 generally outperformed those with the other treatments. They produced the highest N2 fixing capacity of 30.5% (262 mg N2 fixed plant−1) and 25.5% (304 mg N2 fixed plant−1) of the total N requirement of maize top at D50 and D65, respectively. N remobilisation and plant senescence in maize were delayed by PGPR inoculation, which is an indicative of greater grain production. This is indicated by significant interactions between PGPR strains and time of harvests for parameters on N uptake and at. % 15Ne of tassel. The phenomenon is also supported by the lower N content in tassels of maize treated with PGPR, namely, B. pumilus S1r1, K. pneumoniae Fr1, B. subtilis UPMB10 and Acinetobacter sp. S3r2 at D65 harvest. This study provides evidence that PGPR inoculation, namely, B. pumilus S1r1 can biologically fix atmospheric N2 and provide an alternative technique, besides plant breeding, to delay N remobilisation in maize plant for higher ear yield (up to 30.9%) with reduced fertiliser-N input.

Remediation of Fluoride Laden Water by Complexation with Triethylamine Modified Maize Tassels

<p class="1Body">Several methods for the removal of fluorides in water have been proposed, most of which rely on the use of biomaterials and bone char. In such processes, the adsorbent become loaded with the pre-concentrated pollutant leading to a disposal problem. This study reports on the modification of the maize tassels with triethylamine followed by its subsequent application on the removal of fluoride ions from water. The theory underlying the removal method is based on the interaction of the permanently charged quaternized material with the highly electronegative fluoride ion. This is a regeneratable, affordable, eco-friendly, solution to the problem of secondary pollution and sustainable water remediation method of this toxic water pollutant. The resulting biomaterial derived from agricultural waste was used in the removal experiments on both model solutions and real water samples. The effect of pH, contact time, initial fluoride concentration and biomaterial resin dosage were investigated. It was observed that the amount complexed fluoride ions per unit mass of biomaterial increased with increase in concentration up to a point of saturation. The optimum removal pH was found to be 4.0. The biomaterial was very effective in fluoride removal as 86% of the fluoride was removed within the first 20 min. However, the uptake of fluoride ions in real water samples was found to be slightly lower compared to the model solutions. The experimental data was analysed using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. It fitted best in the Langmuir isotherm implying a chemisorption process. The adsorption capacity was found to be 0.19 mg/g and it was also observed that the sorbent when packed in a SPE column could be regenerated by stripping the attached fluoride ions with a dilute hydrochloric acid solution. These findings show that the modified material is suitable for application in the removal of fluorides in water at a point of use. This is intended to offer a solution to the drinking water for the children born by the population living in areas that are naturally fluoridated. Such parents are mean with their smile due to the problem of their permanently brown stained teeth.</p>

The effect of methyl jasmonate on Zea mays tassel development

Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) is a lipid-derived plant hormone that mediates diverse biological phenomena. Application of MeJA onto rice spikelet could exhibit abnormal floral organ development. Although jasmonic acid (JA) has been proved to be involved in maize tassel sex determination process, the roles of JA and its precursor MeJA in maize tassel development still remain obscure. In this study, we found that tassel development was decelerated by application of2 mMMeJA. Exogenous MeJA also influenced the number of palea and stamens of tassel spikelets. Exogenous MeJA increased the expression level of some key regulator genes, which may responsible for the phenotypic change in MeJA-treated tassel, and may mediate the crosstalk between MeJA and other hormones.

Clarification of colloidal and suspended material in water using triethanolamine modified maize tassels

Suspended particles in water are a major concern in global pollution management. They affect the appreciation of water due to clarity, photosynthesis, and poor oxygen environment rendering water unsuitable for aquatic animals. Some suspended materials contain functional groups capable of forming complex compounds with metals making them available for poisoning. Such material promotes the growth of bacteria and fouling that give rise to unpleasant taste and odor of the water and thus requires removal. Removal of suspended solids is normally achieved through sedimentation or filtration. However, some suspended colloidal particles are very stable in water and cannot settle while others are able to pass through the filter due to small size, hence difficult to remove. This study investigated the use of triethanolamine-modified maize tassels to form a flocculent for their removal. The modified maize tassels were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and it was found that the triethanolamine was anchored within the cellulose structure of the maize tassels. Clarification parameters such as settling time, reagent dosage, and pH were investigated. The best clarification was at a pH of 6.0 with clearance being less than in 30 min. The optimal flocculent dosage was found to be 3.5 ml of the material, showing that the material has a potential of enhancing clarity in polluted water.

Fine-grained maize tassel trait characterization with multi-view representations

The characteristics of maize tassel trait are important cues to improve the farming operation for production enhancement. Currently, the information obtained from the maize tassel mainly depends on human labor, which is subjective and labor-intensive. Recent researches have introduced several image-based approaches to overcome the shortage with a modest degree of success. However, due to the variation of cultivar, pose and illumination, and the clustered background, characterizing the maize tassel trait with computer vision remains a challenging problem. To this end, an automatic fine-grained machine vision system termed mTASSEL is developed in this paper. We proposed to characterize the maize tassel with multi-view representations that combine multiple feature views and different channel views, which can alleviate the influence of environmental variations. In addition to the total tassel number trait, some fine-grained tassel traits, including the tassel color, branch number, length, width, perimeter and diameter, are further characterized to execute the time-series monitoring. To boost the related research, a relatively large-scale maize tassel dataset (10 sequences with 16,031 samples) is first constructed by our team. The experimental results demonstrate that both system modules significantly outperform other state-of-the-art approaches by large margins (26.0% for the detection and 7.8% for the segmentation). Results of this research can serve the automatic growth stage detection, accurate yield estimation and machine detasseling, as well as the field-based phenotyping research. The dataset and source code of the system are available online.

Identification and characterization of paternal-preferentially expressed gene NF-YC8 in maize endosperm.

Gene imprinting describes an epigenetic phenomenon, whereby genetically identical alleles are differentially expressed dependent on parent-of-origin. Some imprinted genes belonged to NUCLEAR FACTOR Y (NF-Y) transcription factors, which were involved in many important metabolic processes in plant. The characterizations of imprinted genes are of great importance for their function exploration. In this paper, 15 non-redundant NF-YC genes were identified in the maize genome and the paternally expressed gene NF-YC8 was further analyzed. NF-YC8 primarily expressed in maize immature ear and tassel and phylogenetic analysis showed that NF-YC8 was highly homologous with Arabidopsis thaliana NF-YC2 genes which function in regulation of the flowering processes, ER stress response. Furthermore, NF-YC8 was a differential, gene-specific imprinted gene at 14 DAP and persistently imprinted throughout later endosperm development in the B73/Mo17 genetic background. Bisulfite sequencing for NF-YC8 in maize endosperm showed that the paternal alleles were higher methylated (CG, CHG and CHH contexts) than maternal alleles in the 5' upstream region, and the coding region was highly methylated in CG context. Additionally, TE (CG, CHG and CHH contexts) and repetitive region (CG and CHG contexts) were all highly methylated. These results are the first description of evolution and molecular characterization of maize NF-YC8 and will provide new references for maize NF-YC genetic analysis.

Extraction and Characterization of Natural Cellulose Fibers from Maize Tassel

This article reports on the extraction and characterization of novel natural cellulose fibers obtained from the maize (tassel) plant. Cellulose was extracted from the agricultural residue (waste biomaterial) of maize tassel. The maize tassel fibers were obtained after treatment with NaOH and were carefully characterized while the chemical composition was determined. The chemical composition of the maize tassel fibers showed that the cellulose content increased from 41% to 56%, following alkali treatment. FT-IR spectroscopic analysis of maize tassel fibers confirmed that this chemical treatment also shows the way to partial elimination of hemicelluloses and lignin from the structure of the maize tassel fibers. X-ray diffraction results indicated that this process resulted in enhanced crystallinity of the maize tassel fibers. The thermal properties of the maize tassel fibers were studied by the TGA technique and were found to have improved significantly. The degradation temperature of the alkali-treated maize tassel fiber is higher than that of the untreated maize tassel fibers. This value convincingly showed the potential of maize tassel fibers for use in reinforced biocomposites and waste water treatment.

Preparation and use of maize tassels' activated carbon for the adsorption of phenolic compounds in environmental waste water samples.

The determination and remediation of three phenolic compounds bisphenol A (BPA), ortho-nitrophenol (o-NTP), parachlorophenol (PCP) in wastewater is reported. The analysis of these molecules in wastewater was done using gas chromatography (GC) × GC time-of-flight mass spectrometry while activated carbon derived from maize tassel was used as an adsorbent. During the experimental procedures, the effect of various parameters such as initial concentration, pH of sample solution, eluent volume, and sample volume on the removal efficiency with respect to the three phenolic compounds was studied. The results showed that maize tassel produced activated carbon (MTAC) cartridge packed solid-phase extraction (SPE) system was able to remove the phenolic compounds effectively (90.84-98.49%, 80.75-97.11%, and 78.27-97.08% for BPA, o-NTP, and PCP, respectively). The MTAC cartridge packed SPE sorbent performance was compared to commercially produced C18 SPE cartridges and found to be comparable. All the parameters investigated were found to have a notable influence on the adsorption efficiency of the phenolic compounds from wastewaters at different magnitudes.

Changes in nitrogen metabolism and antioxidant enzyme activities of maize tassel in black soils region of northeast China.

Two varieties of maize (Zea mays L.) grown in fields in black soils of northeast China were tested to study the dynamic changes of nitrogen metabolism and antioxidant enzyme activity in tassels of maize. Results showed that antioxidant enzyme activity in tassels of maize increased first and then decreased with the growing of maize, and reached peak value at shedding period. Pattern of proline was consistent with antioxidant enzyme activity, showing that osmotic adjustment could protect many enzymes, which are important for cell metabolism. Continuous reduction of soluble protein content along with the growing of maize was observed in the study, which indicated that quantitative material and energy were provided for pollen formation. Besides, another major cause was that a large proportion of nitrogen was used for the composition of structural protein. Nitrate nitrogen concentrations of tassels were more variable than ammonium nitrogen, which showed that nitrate nitrogen was the favored nitrogen source for maize.

Detecting corn tassels using computer vision and support vector machines

An automated solution for maize detasseling is very important for maize growers who want to reduce production costs. Quality assurance of maize requires constantly monitoring production fields to ensure that only hybrid seed is produced. To achieve this cross-pollination, tassels of female plants have to be removed for ensuring all the pollen for producing the seed crop comes from the male rows. This removal process is called detasseling. Computer vision methods could help positioning the cutting locations of tassels to achieve a more precise detasseling process in a row. In this study, a computer vision algorithm was developed to detect cutting locations of corn tassels in natural outdoor maize canopy using conventional color images and computer vision with a minimum number of false positives. Proposed algorithm used color informations with a support vector classifier for image binarization. A number of morphological operations were implemented to determine potential tassel locations. Shape and texture features were used to reduce false positives. A hierarchical clustering method was utilized to merge multiple detections for the same tassel and to determine the final locations of tassels. Proposed algorithm performed with a correct detection rate of 81.6% for the test set. Detection of maize tassels in natural canopy images is a quite difficult task due to various backgrounds, different illuminations, occlusions, shadowed regions, and color similarities. The results of the study indicated that detecting cut location of corn tassels is feasible using regular color images.

Maize tassel-modified carbon paste electrode for voltammetric determination of Cu(II)

The preparation and application of a practical electrochemical sensor for environmental monitoring and assessment of heavy metal ions in samples is a subject of considerable interest. In this paper, a carbon paste electrode modified with maize tassel for the determination of Cu(II) has been proposed. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were used to study morphology and identify the functional groups on the modified electrode, respectively. First, Cu(II) was adsorbed on the carbon paste electrode surface at open circuit and voltammetric techniques were used to investigate the electrochemical performances of the sensor. The electrochemical sensor showed an excellent electrocatalytic activity towards Cu(II) at pH5.0 and by increasing the amount of maize tassel biomass, a maximum response at 1:2.5 (maize tassel:carbon paste; w/w) was obtained. The electrocatalytic redox current of Cu(II) showed a linear response in the range (1.23μM to 0.4mM) with the correlation coefficient of 0.9980. The limit of detection and current-concentration sensitivity were calculated to be 0.13 (±0.01) μM and 0.012 (±0.001) μA/μM, respectively. The sensor gave good recovery of Cu(II) in the range from 96.0 to 98.0% when applied to water samples.

Activated Carbon from Lignocellulosic Waste Residues: Effect of Activating Agent on Porosity Characteristics and Use as Adsorbents for Organic Species

This paper reports on the effect of activating agents such as the impregnation ratio of phosphoric acid (1:1–1:5) at constant activation temperature on the performance of porous activated carbon from waste residues (maize tassel). The variation in the impregnation ratio of the produced activated carbon (AC) from 1:1 to 1:5 enabled the preparation of a high surface area (1,263 m2/g) and a large pore volume (1.592 cm3/g) of AC produced from maize tassel (MT) using a convectional chemical activating agent (phosphoric acid). Impregnation ratios (IR) of the precursors were varied between 1:1 and 1:5 in which it was found that the ratio of 1:4 was optimal based on the high surface area, while 1:5 has the optimal pore volume value for the produced activated carbon.

Steam activation, characterisation and adsorption studies of activated carbon from maize tassels

In this paper, steam-produced activated carbon (STAC) from maize tassel (MT) was evaluated for its ability to remove basic dye (methylene blue MB) from aqueous solution in a batch adsorption process. The equilibrium experiments were conducted in the range of 50–300 mg/L initial MB concentrations at 30°C, for effect of pH, adsorbent dosage and contact time. The experimental data were analysed by Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm models of adsorption. Freundlich adsorption isotherm was found to have highest value of R2(R2=0.97) compared to other models of Langmuir and Temkin having (0.96 and 0.95 respectively). STAC has a high adsorptive capacity for MB dye (200 mg/g) and also showed favourable adsorption for the dye with the separation factor (RL<1) for the dye-activated carbon system. The kinetic data obtained were analysed using pseudo first-order kinetic equation and pseudo second-order kinetic equation. The experimental data fitted well into pseudo second-order kinetic equation, as demonstrated by the high value of R2.

Removal of phenolics from aqueous media using quaternised maize tassels

This paper reports on the preparation and modification of powdered maize tassels with polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride (polyDADMAC). The modified tassel were applied for the removal of phenolic compounds from water, through adsorption. The effect of contact time, sorbent dose, pH of the sample and the adsorption capacity were investigated at fixed temperature (25 °C). The optimum pH was 6.0 and the uptake was more than 90% within the first 10 min of contact. The adsorption prescribed to Langmuir model of monolayer adsorption implying a chemisorption process. The adsorption capacities were found to be 7.09, 8.23, 8.84 and 4.74 mg g−1 for chlorobenzoic acid, 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol and 1,2-dihyroxybenzene respectively. These were fairly higher than many other reported systems. The removal efficiency was found to be 75, 64, 55 and 40% for Chlorobenzoic acid, 2,4,6-Trichlorophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol and 1,2-dihyroxybenzene, respectively. This proved that quaternised maize tassels can be used as an efficient adsorbent material for removal of phenolic compounds from water and wastewater.

Influence of Amendments Added to Acid Soils on Biochemical Properties, Nitrogen Uptake and Hybrid Maize Yields in Nakuru County, Kenya

Aim: The current study investigated effect of soil amendments; lime (L), manure (FYM) and minjingu phosphate rock (PR) added to soils on soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen (SMB-C and SMB-N), available soil nitrogen (N), crop N uptake and grain yields of two maize hybrids (H513 and H614). Study Design: Two experiments, one for each maize hybrid as test crop, were laid out in a randomized complete block design with a 2 factorial arrangement. The factors each at two levels were L (0 and 3 t ha), PR (0 and 60 kg P ha) and FYM (0 and 5 t ha) giving a total of eight treatments; L, RP, FYM, L+RP, L+FYM, RP+FYM, L+RP+FYM and control (nothing applied). Methods: Soil and plant samples for the determination of SMB-C and SMB-N, available soil N, and crop N uptake were collected at maize seedling, tasseling and physiological Original Research Article Lelei et al.; IJPSS, Article no. IJPSS.2014.004 468 maturity. Place and Duration of the Study: The experiment was conducted in Molo district of Nakuru County, Kenya during the long rain seasons of 2009 and 2010. Results: SMB-C and N levels were higher in 2010 than 2009, with lower levels obtained at maize tasseling for both maize hybrids. Available soil N and crop N uptake were higher at maize seedling and declined towards maturity. Statistically significant (P<.05) increases in SMB-C and SMB-N and available soil N and uptake were obtained with the application of soil amendments over the control. In all treatments, H513 had lower N uptake than H614 at tasseling and maturity stages of maize growth and correspondingly higher available N in soil. Maize yields (t ha) were higher in 2010 than 2009 and in H614 than H513. The H614 yields were significantly higher (P<.05) in L+PR+FYM (3.9) and, L+PR+FYM (4.1) and L+PR (3.9) treatments in 2009 and 2010, respectively. For H513, yields were significantly higher in L+PR+FYM (2.1 and 2.4) and L+PR (1.9 and 2.1) treatments in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Conclusion: The L+PR+FYM treatment is a feasible acid soil amendment for its superiority in the measured soil and crop parameters. The H513 matured faster than H614 and because of this attribute, is a viable option in response to the diminishing rainfall amounts and unpredictable weather patterns experienced in the County.