Abstract:
An experiment was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University farm to
study the effect of polythene mulch and irrigation frequencies on the growth
and yield of white maize (PSC-121) during rabi 2015-16. Polythene mulching
had two levels; without polythene (P
0
) and with polythene (P). Four irrigation
frequencies constituted the irrigation treatment (I
0
ii
= No irrigation, I
1
= One
irrigation at 15 DAS, I
2
= Two irrigations at 15 and 30 DAS, I
3
= Three
irrigations at 15, 30 and 60 DAS and I
4
= Four irrigations at 15, 30, 60 and 90
DAS). Polythene was applied between two adjacent rows of maize following
each irrigation. The trial was conducted following split-plot design assigning
polythene mulch in the main plot and irrigations in the subplot. Results showed
that polythene application showed 35% increase yield over without polythene
(6.970 t ha
-1
). Likewise irrigation treatments I
3
and I
4
had statistically similar
seed yields (10.540 and 10.610 t ha
-1
) which were significantly higher than
others irrigation treatments. The combination treatments PI
3
and PI
4
showed
significantly higher seed yields (12.72 t ha
-1
and 12.810 t ha
-1
respectively) than
other treatment combinations which may be attributed to the increased dry
matter, leaf area index, number of grains per cob (500.3 and 510.1 respectively)
and 100-seed weight (35.86 g and 36.33 g respectively).
Description:
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of Agriculture,
Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka,
in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE (MS)
IN
AGRONOMY
