PARTHA DEBNATH, S. HEMALATHA*, D. SREELATHA AND A. MADHAVI

Department of Agronomy, S.V. Agricultural College, ANGRAU, Tirupati – 517 502. A.P.

ABSTRACT

A field experiment entitled “Biofortification of Speciality corn with zinc” was conducted on sandy loam soils of Maize Research Center, Agricultural Research Institute, Rajendranagar during kharif, 2013 to study the effect of zinc nutrition in speciality corn. The experiment comprised of 18 treatments viz., combination of three types of speciality corn [Popcorn, Sweet corn and Quality protein maize (QPM)] and six zinc levels [both soil and foliar application). The results revealed that three different types of corn and zinc levels significantly influenced growth parameters such as plant height, leaf area index(LAI), dry matter production and yield attributes such as cob number, number of grains per cob, cob girth and yield. Better growth and yield was registered with 25 kg ZnSO4 ha-1as soil application along with two foliar sprays i.e. at tasseling and milking stage. Sweet corn registered significantly higher number of cobs, longer cobs and maximum cob girth compared to QPM and popcorn. Number of grain rows per cob of popcorn was superior to QPM and sweet corn. Number of grains per row of QPM was significantly superior over popcorn and sweet corn. Green cob yield of sweet corn was significantly high and higher and lower grain yields were recorded with QPM and popcorn respectively. Likewise, sweet corn produced maximum green fodder yield compared to stover yield of QPM and popcorn.

KEYWORDS:

Biofortification, popcorn, speciality corn, sweet corn, QPM, Zinc