Effects of irrigation and nitrogen management on hybrid maize seed production in north-west China

Abstract

Scientific irrigation and nitrogen management is important for agricultural production in arid areas. To quantify the effect of water and nitrogen management on yield components, biomass partitioning and harvest index (HI) of maize for seed production with plastic film-mulching, field experiments including different irrigation and N treatments were conducted in arid north-west China in 2013 and 2014. The results indicated that kernel number per plant (KN) was significantly affected by irrigation and N treatments. However, 100-kernel weight was relatively stable. Reducing irrigation quantity significantly increased stem partitioning index (PI_stem) and leaf partitioning index (PI_leaf), and decreased ear partitioning index (PI_ear) at harvest, but lowering N rate (from 500 to 100 kg N·hm^-2) did not significantly reduce PI_stem, PI_leaf, and PI_ear at harvest. HI was significantly reduced by reducing irrigation quantity, but not by reducing N rate. Linear relationships were found between KN, PI_stem, PI_leaf, PI_ear at harvest and HI and evapotranspiration (ET).

Keywords

yield components / biomass partitioning / harvest index / irrigation / nitrogen / maize for seed production

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91425302, 51321001, 51379208), and the Discipline Innovative Engineering Plan (B14002).

Hui Ran, Shaozhong Kang, Fusheng Li, Ling Tong, and Taisheng Du declare that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg