Bangladesh Agron. J. 2015, 18(2): 23-29 PERFORMANCE OF HYBRID MAIZE VARIETIES AS INFLUENCED BY IRRIGATION LEVELS M. S. Bhuiyan1, M. S. R. Bhuiyan2, T. P. Tiwari3, M. A. Rahaman4 S. K. Bhowal5, R. Uddin6 and S. K. Paul1 1Agronomy Division, BARI, Gazipur, Bangladesh 2Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, SAU, Dhaka, Bangladesh 3CIMMYT-Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh 4OFRD, BARI, Tangail, Bangladesh; 5OFRD, BARI, Comilla, Bangladesh 6RARS, BARI, Barisal, Bangladesh Corresponding author’s: sawkatsarfuddin@gmail.com Key words: Hybrid maize, Irrigation levels, Water Saving Abstract The present piece of research work was carried out at the field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, from December 2010 to May 2011 to determine optimum irrigation levels for the hybrid maize varieties. There were four hybrid maize varieties: V1 (BARI Hybrid Maize-5), V2 (Pacific 60), V3 (NK 40) and V4 (Ajanta) and three levels of irrigation: I1 = Two irrigations at 25 and 50 DAS, I2 = Three irrigations at 25, 50 and 75 DAS and I3 = Four irrigations at 25, 50, 75 and 100 DAS, respectively. Almost all the plant and yield contributing characters showed significant variation except days to 6 leaf stage and days to bud initiation stage. The maximum yields were recorded in V1I3 (7.92 t ha-1) which was statistically identical to V4I3 (7.83 t ha-1), V2I3 (7.45 t ha-1), V1I2 (7.40 t ha-1), V2I2 (6.87 t ha-1) and V4I2 (6.80 t ha-1), respectively. The highest benefit cost ratio (BCR) was observed (2.37) in both V1I3 and V1I2 treatment combination. Moreover, total average water saving in one hectare land for maize cultivation by adopting I2 irrigation treatment over I3 is 4,49,837 gallons. Among the treatment combinations, V1I3 (BARI Hybrid Maize-5 with three irrigations at 25, 50 and 75 DAS) was the suitable combination in terms of grain yield and economic return for maize cultivation. Introduction Maize (Zea mays L.) is considered as the third cereal crop in Bangladesh after rice and wheat. Its position is the first among the cereals in terms of yield, but area and production ranks third after rice and wheat. It covers about 4,09,000 acres of land producing 10,18,000 tons of grains in 2010-11 (BBS, 2011) in Bangladesh. Hybrid maize cultivation area has increased at the rate of about 20-25% per year since nineties. Now-a-days, there are many government and non government organizations are working for increasing maize production in Bangladesh. Besides, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has released eleven promising hybrid maize varieties. Variety plays an important role in producing high yield and good quality maize. Different varieties respond differently to input supply, cultivation practices and prevailing environment etc. during the growing season. Higher yield up to 9-11 t ha-1 can be obtained using hybrid seeds, balanced fertilizers and better management practices (Mondal et al., 2014). The average yield of maize in Bangladesh is rather low compared with leading maize growing countries of the world. Availability as well as the cost of management of irrigation water is one of the most expensive inputs for maize cultivation. Moreover, at present, the farmers are facing the problem of getting available irrigation water and may be acute in future because of the lowering water table day by day. Proper growth and development of maize needs 24 Bhuiyan et al. favorable soil moisture up to its root zone. Limited water supply during the growing season results in soil and plant water deficits and reduces maize yields (Gordon, et al., 1995; Patel et al., 2006). Irrigation scheduling is necessary for the most effective use of valuable water for optimizing maize production. Proper water management reduces irrigation cost. So,for proper growth and development of hybrid maize, appropriate irrigation scheduling is needed (Lafound et al., 1992; Arshad et al., 1995). Improper scheduling of irrigation results not only in wastage of water but decrease the crop growth and in yield. In these circumstances, a research work was undertaken to find out the suitable maize hybrid variety (s) with lower water requirement and to find out the best irrigation management practices for higher economic return. Materials and Methods The study was conducted at the experimental farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, during December 2010 to May 2011. The location of the experimental site was situated at 230 77' N latitude and 900 3' E longitudes with an elevation of 8.6 meter from the sea level. The experimental site wassituated in the subtropical zone. The soil of the experimental site belongs to Madhupur Tract of Agro Ecological Zone (AEZ-28) (FAO, 1988). The soil was clay loam in texture and olive gray with common fine to medium distinct dark yellowish brown mottles. The pH was 5.47 to 5.63. The organic matter and K content of the soil is low but status of CEC and P is medium (BARC, 2005). The experiment was set up in a split plot design with three replications where Variety (V1= BARI Hybrid Maize-5, V2= Pacific-60, V3= NK-40 and V4= Ajanta) in main plot and Irrigation level (I1 =Two irrigations at 25 and 50 DAS, I2 = Three irrigations at 25, 50 and 75 DAS and I3 = Four irrigations at 25, 50, 75 and 100 DAS, respectively) in sub-plot. Irrigation have been applied to reach the soil moisture upto field capacity so no infiltrations have been occurred. The dosages of fertilizer (512-275-200-222-14-6 kg/ha Urea-TSP-MoP-Gypsum-ZnSO4-Boric Acid) were applied according to FRG, 2005, BARC. Seeds were sown by hand at 75 cm apart line to line and 25 cm plant to plant. Post sowing light irrigation was given for proper germination of seeds. Two weedings were done at 24 and 49 days after sowing (DAS) and two thinning were done also at 24 and 49 DAS, keeping one plant per hill. The mixture of Diazinon 60 EC @ 2 ml/L and Ripcord 10 EC @ 1 ml/L of water was applied to control leaf cutting caterpillar at 6-8 leaf stage for two times, seven days interval. The water requirement for maize cultivation is determined by measuring the soil moisture. The depth or water requirement can be determined by the following equation- Irrigation depth, FC (%) - MCi (%) d = -------------------------- X ρ X D ---------------------------(1) 100 Where, d= Depth of water to be applied (cm), FC= Field capacity of the soil (%), MCi= Moisture content of the soil at the time of irrigation (%), ρ = Bulk density of the soil (gm / cc), D= Root zone depth (cm) The collected data were statistically analyzed using MSTAT-C statistical programme with Least Significant Difference (LSD) by Gomez and Gomez (1984). Results and Discussion Interaction effects of variety and irrigation levels on plant characters of hybrid maize 25 Performance of Hybrid Maize Varieties as Influenced by Irrigation Levels Interaction effect of variety and irrigation levels varied significantly except days to 6 leaf stage and days to bud initiation stage (Table 1). All the combinations took 44-46 days to open the first 6 –leaf stage. The maximum days (82) were needed in V4I1 in 12 leaf stage and while other combination took almost similar days (76-77). The variation on days to bud initiation was insignificant while days to tassel emergence t range maximum and minimum days (87 and 83). Days to tassel flowering were observed in different treatment combination from 86 to 89 days. Silk emerged just after the tassel flowering which also varied significantly, while The maximum days (90) in V2I3, V3I1 and V3I3 and the minimum days (88). Days to pollen shedding were statistically significant where V3I3 needed the maximum day (92) while the minimum days (89) in V1I3. Nizam-uddin et al., (2010) and Malik et al., (2010) supported the above findings and stated that; cultivars differed significantly for all parameters. Interaction effects of variety and irrigation levels on yield and yield contributing characters of hybrid maize Interaction effect of different variety and irrigation levels treatment on yield and yield contributing characters of hybrid maize shown in Table 2. Plant height increases with increase the number of irrigation among all the varieties. Cob height showed almost the same trend of result found from the plant height. The nearest cob (66 cm) from the ground was found from V3I1 and the farthest cob (97 cm) in V1I3. The longest distance (85 cm) was found in V1I2 followed by V4I3 (83cm) and V1I3 (81 cm) whereas the shortest in V4I1 (60 cm) followed by V3I1 (61 cm) and V1I1 (64 cm). Number of cobs increased with the application of irrigation water. Among the variety, the maximum number of cobs (1.2) were found in V2 and V4 followed by V1 (1.17) in I3 irrigation treatment. The highest cob length (16.7 cm) was found from V1I3 while the lowest cob length (13.3 cm) from V2I1 and V4I1. The grain weight per cob in the treatment combination V4I2, V1I2 and V2I2, were 142, 141 and 139, respectively followed by V3I3 (140 g). 1000-grains weight increased with the number of application of irrigation water. However, the maximum 1000-grain weight was recorded in the treatment combination V3I3 which was statistically identical with V3I2 V4I3 V4I2 and V1I3. The grain yield of different treatment combination varied significantly where the highest grain yields was obtained in four irrigation (I3) and the lowest in two irrigation (I1) in all the variety. A gradual increasing trend was observed in every variety with the increase of irrigation level. Therefore, it is evident that, irrigation has a great effect on hybrid maize yield regardless of variety. Among the treatment combination, variety V3 with all the irrigation levels gave the lowest yield, even its highest yield (6.22 t ha-1) in I3 was statistically at par with the I2 irrigation level of other varieties. The lowest yields (4.89, 5.01, 5.53 and 5.65 t ha- 1 , respectively) were recorded with I1 irrigation level in V3, V4, V1, and V2 , respectively. The yield increased in V1 from I1 to I2 was 34% and I2 to I3 7%, in V2 from I1 to I2 was 21% and I2 to I3 8%, in V3 from I1 to I2 was 24% and I2 to I3 2% and in V4 from I1 to I2 was 35% and I2 to I3 15%, respectively. It was also observed that, incase of V1 the yield in I2 was better than the yield of other varieties in I2 irrigation. Aziz et al., (2011) observed that, among the varieties BARI Hybrid Maize-5 produced maximum grain yield. Islam and Mian (2004) showed that, varieties had significant variation on yield and yield contributing characters. Biological yield of different treatment combination also varied significantly. The highest biological yield was obtained from V1I3 while lowest from V1I1. Irrigation water utilization and economic analysis of different treatment combinations The average irrigation water used in I1 was 1209725 gallons ha-1 with the average grain yield of 5.27 t/ha whereas in I3, 2079587 gallons ha-1 with the grain yield of 7.36 t ha-1. In I2, moderate yield of 6.79 t ha-1 was observed with 1629750 gallons ha-1 irrigation water which 26 Bhuiyan et al. was statistically identical to I3. Moreover, 4, 49,837 gallons of water can be saved by using I2 irrigation treatment without reducing significant quantity of grain yield. Among the varieties V1 gave the highest yield (7.40 t ha-1) with I2 treatment Therefore, the treatment combination of V1I2 gave higher yield with moderate level of irrigation water (Table 3). In I3 irrigation treatment higher amount water was used but yield was not statistically different from I2. Total average water saving in one hectare of land for maize cultivation by adopting I2 irrigation treatment over I3 irrigation treatment was (20,79,587 – 16,29,750) = 4,49,837 gallons. Therefore, I2 irrigation treatment was optimum irrigation practices for maize cultivation considering yields and water saving aspect. Cost Benefit Analysis Effect of variety and irrigation combination on cost and economic benefit of the hybrid maize production has shown in Table 4. The highest total variable cost (Tk. 69028/ha) was observed in the I3 treatment and the lowest total variable cost (Tk. 59028/ha) in I1 treatment with all the varieties. The increment of cost (Tk. 4500/ha) and (Tk. 5500/ha) was found in I2 from I1 and I3 from I2, respectively. The highest human labor cost (Tk. 10500/ha) was found in I3 irrigation treatment followed by I2 (Tk. 10000/ha) and I1 (Tk. 9500/ha), respectively. One time higher irrigation level increased the cost Tk. 1000 ha. The highest irrigation cost (Tk. 17000/ha) was observed in the I3 treatment whereas the lowest irrigation cost (Tk. 10000/ha) was observed in I1 treatment. The highest gross return (Tk. 163870/ha) was found in V1I3 treatment combination which was similar to V4I3 (Tk.161115/ha) and the lowest gross return (Tk. 100710/ha) was in V3I1. The highest net return (Tk. 94842/ha) was found in V1I3 t which was followed by V4I3 (Tk. 92087/ha) treatment combination. The lowest net return was found in V3I1 (Tk. 41682/ha). The highest benefit cost ratio (BCR) 2.37 was observed in V1I2 and V1I3 treatment combination with three and four irrigations. The lowest BCR (1.71) was observed in V3I1 treatment combination followed by V4I1 (1.74) and V1I1 (1.90), respectively. Therefore, it was observed that I2 irrigation treatment produced almost similar returns and benefit cost ratio with I3 irrigation level. Moreover, a huge quantity of irrigation water can be saved by utilizing I2 instead of I3 irrigation level. So, I2 irrigation treatment was the most effective treatment because yields and yield contributing characters of maize were very much similar with I3 irrigation treatment. In I1 irrigation treatment maize yields was lower with lower yield contributing characters. Two, three and four irrigation increased yields by an additional 16.9, 6.7 and 4.3% respectively. Water savings can be achieved by applying two or three irrigations which should increase yield without significantly reducing yield compared to four irrigations. Pandey et al. (2000) observed that yield reduction (22.6 - 26.4%) were found with deficit irrigation and this was associated with decrease in kernel number and weight. Karim et al., (2010) found that the coefficient of human labour, land preparation, irrigation, urea and borax have significantly impact on gross return. Table 1. Interaction effect of variety and irrigation on different plant characters of hybrid maize Treatment Combination Days to 6 leaf Days to 12 leaf Days to bud initiation Days to tassel emergenc Days to tassel flowering Days to silk emergenc Days to pollen shedding 27 Performance of Hybrid Maize Varieties as Influenced by Irrigation Levels e e V1I1 44 78 83 83 87 89 90 V1I2 45 76 82 85 88 89 90 V1I3 47 78 84 86 87 88 89 V2I1 44 77 82 84 87 89 90 V2I2 45 78 85 87 88 89 91 V2I3 46 76 82 86 88 90 90 V3I1 44 78 84 85 89 90 90 V3I2 46 79 84 86 87 89 90 V3I3 45 78 85 87 89 90 92 V4I1 45 82 83 83 87 89 90 V4I2 46 79 81 84 86 88 90 V4I3 47 77 82 85 87 89 90 LSD (0.05) NS 3.96 NS 2.78 2.11 1.97 1.46 CV (%) 2.70 3.00 2.57 1.93 1.43 1.30 0.96 Table 2. Interaction effect of variety and irrigation on yield and yield contributing characters of hybrid maize Treatment Combination Plant height (cm) Cob height (cm) Cob length (cm) Grain weight / Cob (g) 1000- grain weight (g) Grain yield (t/ha) BIologica l yield (t/ha) V1I1 142 77 13.7 116 268 5.53 9.02 V1I2 170 84 15.0 131 290 6.60 12.14 V1I3 178 97 16.7 156 318 8.44 18.86 V2I1 149 81 13.3 119 297 5.95 10.00 V2I2 163 89 13.7 139 303 6.87 11.23 V2I3 170 92 15.3 145 309 7.94 15.22 V3I1 127 66 13.7 103 284 4.89 10.71 V3I2 156 80 15.0 127 339 6.11 13.20 V3I3 163 91 15.3 140 340 6.63 16.53 V4I1 141 82 13.3 102 270 5.01 10.98 V4I2 159 91 14.7 142 319 6.8 13.99 V4I3 179 96 15.7 150 335 8.35 16.86 LSD (0.05) 10.3 7.43 0.60 10.8 19.9 0.74 1.72 CV (%) 7.76 10.3 4.83 9.76 7.69 13.40 15.30 V1= BARI Hybrid Maize-5, V2= Pacific-60, V3= NK-40 and V4= Ajanta I1 =Two irrigations at 25 and 50 DAS, I2 = Three irrigations at 25, 50 and 75 DAS and I3 = Four irrigations at 25, 50, 75 and 100 DAS Table 3. Total average irrigation water applied in different treatment combination maize yield Treatment combination Total average water used (cm) Total irrigation water used (gallons/ha) Grain yield (t/ha) 28 Bhuiyan et al. I1V1 45.8 1213700 5.53 I1V2 46.3 1226950 5.65 I1V3 46.3 1226950 4.89 I1V4 44.2 1171300 5.01 I2V1 61.5 1629750 7.40 I2V2 61.4 1627100 6.87 I2V3 62.6 1658900 6.11 I2V4 60.5 1603250 6.80 I3V1 80.9 2143850 7.92 I3V2 78.4 2090850 7.45 I3V3 76.7 2032550 6.22 I3V4 77.4 2051100 7.83 V1= BARI Hybrid Maize-5, V2= Pacific-60, V3= NK-40 and V4= Ajanta I1 =Two irrigations at 25 and 50 DAS, I2 = Three irrigations at 25, 50 and 75 DAS and I3 = Four irrigations at 25, 50, 75 and 100 DAS Table 4. Effect of variety and irrigation on cost and economic benefit Treatment combinationCost items V1I1 V1I2 V1I3 V2I1 V2I2 V2I3 V3I1 V3I2 V3I3 V4I1 V4I2 V4I3 H. Labors (Tk./ha)* 9500 10000 10500 9500 10000 10500 9500 10000 10500 9500 10000 10500 Fuel (Tk./ha) 3000 4000 5000 3000 4000 5000 3000 4000 5000 3000 4000 5000 Manure (Tk./ha) 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 Urea (Tk./ha) 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 TSP (Tk./ha) 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 9612 MP (Tk./ha) 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 10656 Gypsum (Tk./ha) 660 660 660 660 660 660 660 660 660 660 660 660 Boric acid (Tk./ha) 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 Irrigation (Tk./ha) 10000 13000 17000 10000 13000 17000 10000 13000 17000 10000 13000 17000 Seeds (Tk./ha) 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 TVC (Tk./ha)# 59028 63528 69028 59028 63528 69028 59028 63528 69028 59028 63528 69028 Gross return (Tk./ha) 112345 150370 163870 115175 139580 152885 100710 125690 129555 103185 139595 161115 Net return (Tk./ha) 53317 86842 94842 56147 76052 83857 41682 62162 60527 44154 76067 92087 Benefit cost ratio 1.90 2.37 2.37 1.95 2.19 2.21 1.71 1.98 1.88 1.74 2.19 2.33 a) Maize =20.00 Tk./kg b) Labor = 250 Tk./day *H. 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