Abstract

Field experiment was conducted at the Department of Agronomy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during Kharif 2010 to study the influence of iron and arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) inoculation on growth and yield of hybrid maize in calcareous soil. The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design with three replications. The treatments included were inoculation of arbuscular mycorrhiza (M + ) and control (without inoculation of mycorrhiza, M - ) under factor A and T1 - 25 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 , T 2 - 50 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 ,T 3 - 0.5% FeSO 4 foliar spray, T 4 - 25 kg FeSO 4 ha-1 + 0.5 % FeSO 4 foliar spray, T 5 - 50 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 + 0.5 % FeSO 4 foliar spray and T 6 – Control under factor B. The results revealed that among the iron treatments, 50 kg FeSO 4 + 0.5% FeSO 4 foliar spray showed the highest grain yield and it was comparable with 25 kg FeSO 4 + 0.5% FeSO 4 foliar spray. Regarding the mycorrhizal treatments, AM inoculated plants recorded the best results. Regarding the interaction, the treatment combination of 25 kg FeSO 4 + 0.5% FeSO 4 foliar spray along with AM recorded the highest grain yield. All the growth attributes showed the similar trend.

Keywords: Hybrid maize, arbuscular mycorrhiza, calcarerus soil iron, foliar spray, growth, yield.