Crop production in arid and semi-arid regions faces the challenge to ensure high yields with limited supply of water. This raises the question to which extent irrigation supply can be reduced without detriment to yield. Field experiments were carried out at the Agriculture Research and Experimental Center Faculty of Agriculture Moshtohor, Banha Univ. in 2008 and 2009 seasons to study the performance of 5 maize varieties i.e., S.C. Hitec, S.C.10, T.W.C Hitec, T.W.C 324 and Giza 2under 4 soil moisture content at 100, 80, 60 and 40 % of the field capacity (FC) of the soil. A split plot arrangement of a randomized complete block design with three replications was used with soil moisture content as main plots and maize varieties as subplots. The obtained results could be summarized as follows: Increasing soil moisture content from 40 to 100 % FC caused a significant growth, yield and yield components characters with insignificant differences between 80and 100% of field capacity in some traits.S.C.10 significantly surpassed other varieties in growth characters, yield and yield components. Significant effect of interaction between soil moisture content (irrigation levels) and maize varieties was obtained for growth, yield and yield components except No. of ears/ plant, ear length, No. of rows/ear, ear grains weight, grain yield /plant and shelling% in the combined analysis. Grain yield per feddan was positively and high significantly correlated with, plant height, ear height, stem diameter, No of ears/plant, ear weight, ear length, No. of rows/ear, No. of grains/row, ear grain weight, 100-grain weight and grain yield/plant. |
