Growth, yield and water-use efficiency of maize under different thermal environments, mulching and irrigation levels

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out at the Research Farm, School of Climate Change and
Agricultural Meteorology, PAU, Ludhiana to evaluate the effect of two dates of sowing (D1: 1st
August and D2: 15th August), mulching (Mo: no mulch and M1: straw mulch @6 t ha–1) and three
irrigation levels (IW/CPE = 0.50 (I1), 0.75 (I2) and 1.00 (I3)) on growth, yield and water use efficiency
of maize during kharif 2010. 1st August sown crop recorded significantly higher grain yield (46.0
qha–1) as compared to 15th August sown crop (33.6 qha–1), which might be due to higher 1000 grain
weight. Similarly among the irrigation levels, grain yield was highest under IW:CPE of 0.75 (42.6 q
ha–1) followed by IW:CPE of 1.0 (39.5 q ha–1) and was lowest in IW:CPE of 0.5 (37.3 q ha–1). Grain
yield was observed to have positive linear relationship with harvest index (R2 = 0.89) and water-use
efficiency (R2 = 0.70). Such studies can be highly beneficial to manage growth, yield and water-use
efficiency of maize under changing climatic conditions.