Influence of Moisture Stress and Dates of Sowing on the Performance of Heat Tolerant Maize Genotypes

Author: B.N. Shwetha*, B.M. Chittapur, P.H. Kuchanur, B.G. Koppalkar, A.S. Halepyati, Mahadevaswamy and H. Veeresh

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Abstract

Maize production is strongly affected by changing climate particularly the rainfall which is either delayed and/or comprised of frequent dry spells and heavy showers during kharif season. However, there is no escape from these vagaries of mansoon. And therefore, production practices like adjusting sowing time and use of tolerant cultivars which helpful in addressing these issues are to be employed for sustained production. To derive some of these option specially for kharif season a field experiment was formulated to know the effect of extended sowing (mid June, July and August) and periodic dry spells of 20 days (20-40, 40-60, 60-80 and 80-100 DAS) on heat tolerant maize genotypes (RCRMH 2, RCRMH 3 and RCRMH 4) in TBP irrigation command in the semi arid tropics of India during rainy season. In the present study July sowing is relatively stress free hence crop recorded higher RWC (76.88% and 56.39%), ASI (2.65 days), growth and yield parameters and consequently grain yield (5610 kg ha-

Keywords

Rainy season, Dates of sowing, Moisture stress, Heat tolerant genotypes, Growth and yield.