EFFECT OF PHOSPHOROUS AND POTASSIUM ON GROWTH YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS OF THREE CULTIVARS OF MAIZE

Abstract

An experiment was conducted for two consecutive seasons (2002/03 and 2003/04) in the experimental farm of the College of Agricultural Studies, Sudan University of Science and Technology at Shambat, to investigate the effect of phosphorous and potassium on growth yield and yield components of three cultivars of maize. The treatments used consisted of three levels of phosphorous, control, (P0), 18 kg P2O5/ha (P1), 36 kg P2O5/ha (P2), two levels of potassium, control (K0), 36 kg K2O/ha (K1) and three cultivars of maize, namely; Hudeiba-2, Mugtama-45 and Damazine. The 18 factorial treatments were executed in randomized complete block design, with 3 replications. The parameters studied were plant height, stem diameter, number of green leaves per plant, days to 50% silking and tasseling, number of cobs per plant, cob-diameter, cob-length, cob-weight, number of rows per cob, number of seeds per cob, 100-seeds weight, yield per plant and final yield. The results showed that cultivars were significantly different (P=0.01) in plant height. The cultivar Mugtama-45 (V2) showed superiority in growth parameters compared to the other two cultivars (V1 and V3) and the yield is 2.339 ton/ha. The results also showed that there were no significant effects of phosphorous and potassium in both seasons.