Effect of Silicon Fertilization on Growth and Yield of Hybrid Maize Under Irrigated and Rainfed Conditions

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of silicon fertilization on growth and yield of hybrid maize under irrigated and rainfed conditions during Rabi, 2017-18 at Eastern Block farm of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The treatments comprised of two factors. Factor one consistsed of three irrigation strategies viz., M1 – adequate irrigation (at regular intervals), M2 – limited irrigation (at critical stages) and M3 – no irrigation (rainfed) and factor two consistsed of silicon sources viz., S1 - seed priming with 1.5 mM of sodium meta silicate for 12 hrs, S2 – foliar application of silicic acid @ 0.2 % at knee high and tassel initiation stages, S3 – seed priming with 1.5 mM sodium meta silicate and foliar application of silicic acid @ 0.2 % twice at knee high and tassel initiation stages, S4 – water spray and S5 – control. The results of the study indicated that adequate irrigation strategy registered significantly higher growth and yield parameters, grain and stover yield of maize. Higher grain yield 6679 kg/ha was recorded under adequate irrigation (M1) condition. Silicon application as seed priming with 1.5 mM of sodium meta silicate and foliar application of silicic acid @ 0.2 % at knee high and tassel initiation stages was recorded higher grain yield of 6130 kg/ha. It was comparable with foliar application of silicic acid @ 0.2 % at knee high and tassel initiation stages alone in registering higher growth and yield of maize.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.2018.000198

Pages

530 - 534

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords