Does soil cultivation practices and inoculation with Azospirillum brasilense affect the performance of maize genotypes?

Abstract

One of the bottlenecks for maize (Zea mays L.) production is the need for a large supply of nitrogen fertilizers, which burdens farmers. A solution to this problem is the use of proteobacteria Azospirillum brasilense as an inoculant. However, experimental results regarding this inoculant vary depending, for instance, on the soil cultivation practices used. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of inoculation with Azospirillum brasilense on morphophysiological characters and yield characteristics of three maize genotypes in two off-season cultivated in no-tillage system (NT). Fallow soil (FS) was used as control. The results showed that soil cultivation had a significant effect on morphophysiological and productivity parameters compared to inoculation with Azospirillum brasilense. There were no distinct morphophysiological differences among the treatments. FS (inoculated or not) was more closely related to productivity parameters (grain yield-YI, weight of 100 seeds-100SW, plant height-PH and number of leaves-NL) than NT in both off-seasons. Among the hybrids, Dekalb 255 PRO3 (DKB 255) showed the highest YI and 100SW. Thus, this hybrid was considered well-adapted to off-seasons in western Paraná, Brazil. The inoculation effect was practically null and did not influence the estimated productivity of the different chosen hybrids.