Evaluation of Some Yellow Maize Hybrids for Grain and Forage Yields Productivity

Abstract

The importance of cereal grains to nutrition of millions of people around the world is widely recognized. After wheat and rice, maize is the most important cereal grain in the world, providing nutrients for humans and animals. Maize silage is an important supplementary feed. The important characteristics of maize silage include high yield and high metabolically energy, but low protein content. Thus, two field experiments were carried out at the Experimental Farm of Gemmeiza Station, FCRI, ARC, Egypt, during summer seasons of 2016 and 2017 to compare and evaluate grain and forage yields as well as chemical composition of yellow maize hybrids i.e. Single crosses SC162, SC166, SC167, SC168, SC177 and SC178, in addition to three-way crosses TWC360 and TWC368. The experiments were carried out in a randomized complete blocks design (RCBD) with four replications. The obtained results from this investigation revealed that SC178 was the latest hybrid in flowering among the studied hybrids. TWC368 produced the highest values of plant height, stalk diameter, number of leaves/plant, leaf area/plant, green plants weight/plot and forage yield/fad. SC162 was significantly surpassed other studied maize hybrids in grain plants weight/plot and forage yield/fad. SC166 produced the highest number of grains/row over both seasons. SC178 produced the highest value of 100-grain weight and carbohydrates percentage. TWC368 recorded the highest no. of rows/ear over both seasons. SC168 resulted in the highest values of grain yield and crude protein percentage. TWC360 recorded the highest crude fiber percentage over both seasons. Results obtained that, planting TWC368 or SC162 hybrids can produce maximum forage yield. In addition, growing SC168 or SC178 hybrids can produce highest grain yield under the environmental conditions of the testing location.

Effect of Irrigation Intervals on Growth, Productivity and Quality of Some Yellow Maize Genotypes

“…This is to be expected since such genotype recorded the highest values of stem and total dry weight/ plant as recorded in Table 3. These results were coincided by those obtained by Ali (2016), Balbaa & Awad (2018), Darwich (2018) and Mostafa (2018) who reported that yellow maize genotype namely S.C 168 was superior to other tested genotypes in grain yield/ fed.…”

“…The differences among the tested maize genotypes in the growth characters may be attributed to the differences in their genetical makeup. In this connection, Darwich (2018) The interaction between the irrigation intervals and the tested maize genotypes was significant for leaf area/ plant in the first season and leaves dry weight/ plant in the second season. The differences among the tested genotypes for such traits were more pronounced when the plants were irrigated every days (normal irrigation) than they were irrigated every 17 and 22 days (moderate and severe stress drought), respectively.…”