Effects of phosphorus biofertilizer on grain yield and yield components of maize (Zea mays L.) at drought stress conditions

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran

2 M. Sc. Student, Dept. of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran

Abstract

To investigate the effect of drought stress and phosphorus bio-fertilizer on yield and its components of maize, SC640, a split plot experiment was conducted based on randomized complete block design with three replications in Islamic Azad University, Dezful Branch, Dezful, Iran, during summer of 2013. Three levels of drought stress including full irrigation (control), drought stress at flowering stage and drought stress at grain filling stage were assigned as main plots and two levels of bio-fertilizer (non-inoculation and inoculation with phosphorus bio-fertilizer) as sub-plots. Analysis of variance showed that drought stress was significantly influenced all of the studied traits. The effect of bio-fertilizer was also significant on all of the traits except for number of rows per ear. The interaction effect of drought stress × bio-fertilizer was significant on ear length, grain phosphorus content, grain phosphorus uptake, grain protein‌ content, grain nitrogen uptake, nitrogen harvest index, phosphorus harvest index and hectoliter weight. The application of bio-fertilizer lead to increasing of 17% in grain yield. The highest value of grain yield (11813.3 kg.ha-1) was obtained under full irrigation condition. Drought stress at the flowering stage decreased grain yield (36%), number of grain per row (16%) and number of row per ear (8%). Although, drought stress at two growth stages significantly reduced the rate of grain nitrogen uptake and hectoliter weight under both inoculated and uninoculated conditions, but phosphorus bio-fertilizer had the modifier role on these traits under drought stress conditions. Thus, results of this research showed that inoculation of seeds with phosphorus bio-fertilizer can be reduced the harmful effects of drought stress on grain yield and quality traits of corn.

Keywords

References

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Cereal Research
Volume 6, Issue 1
June 2016
Pages 119-132

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