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Inter‐plant variation in temperate crops of maize
Author(s) -
BREEZE V. G.,
MILBOURN G. M.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
annals of applied biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1744-7348
pISSN - 0003-4746
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7348.1981.tb04803.x
Subject(s) - biology , sowing , agronomy , temperate climate , hybrid , crop , plant density , yield (engineering) , dry weight , grain yield , horticulture , botany , materials science , metallurgy
SUMMARY Maize grown at northern latitudes suffers from variation in the yield from individual plants, as well as uneven uniformity in the stage of maturity. The contributions of genotype, environment and some seed characteristics to phenotypic variation of weight and stage of development were studied in maize from experiments that included treatments of sowing date, density and planting arrangement, and which used hybrids with differing uniformity of genotype. It was not possible to divide the variation simply into genotypic or environmental components, and the performance of varieties was inconsistent. Single cross material was only slightly more uniform than a double cross variety Using large sized seed led to 1–2 days earlier silking but to little effect on final yields. The size of plants was not influenced by the size of neighbouring plants along the row and spacing in a square arrangement only had a small effect on improving uniformity of plants. More variation occurred at a high density planting. Inter‐plant variation appeared to occur either in dry weight or in the stages of development, but also there was an association between the two, e.g. the largest plants tended to be the most advanced. There was a tendency for the first emerged plants to silk first and to produce the highest grain yield (although this was not consistent in the double cross INRA 200). The first plants to silk in a crop were up to 7 days earlier than the average at harvest and yielded double the grain weight. As reliability of harvest limits the acceptance of grain maize in north‐west Europe, it is suggested that one method that could improve the uniformity in stage of maturing, without seriously reducing final grain yield, is to use a somewhat lower planting density (6 plants/m 2 for grain) than has hitherto been recommended.