Physiological assessment of growth and yield of six maize hybrids in relation to growing degree days

Abstract

An experiment was under taken at the Agricultural College farm, Bapatla during two consecutive years of rabi 2016-17 and 2017-18. The crop growth stages of maize are dependent on various morphological, anatomical and physiological parameters. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with six maize hybrids viz., 900M Gold, DKC 9142, DKC 9120, DKC 9081, DKC 9042 and Pinnacle in four replications. CGR and NAR was found to be the highest at 57 to 63 DAS among all the hybrids during both the seasons where CGR was found to be the highest DKC 9142 followed by Pinnacle which were at par with each other. Whereas, pinnacle recorded highest NAR followed by DKC 9142. Among all the hybrids, RGR was found to be maximum at 50 to 56 DAS coinciding with reproductive primordial development. The yield and yield attributing characters such as length of the cob, number of rows per cob, number of kernels per row, 100 seed weight and the total kernel yield showed significant variation among the hybrids where the highest yield was obtained in pinnacle (9641.41 kg ha-1) and DKC 9142 (9243.9 kg ha-1).