Effect of Npk, Fym and Biofertilizers on Growth and Yield of Maize (Zea Mays L.)

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the important cereal crops next only to wheat and rice in the world. In India. Maize in India, contributes nearly 9% in the national food basket and more than Rs.1 00 billion to the agricultural GDP at current prices apart from the generating employment to over 100 million man-days at the farm and downstream agricultural and industrial sectors. In India, the maize is used as human food (23°A>), poultry feed (51%), animal feed (12%), industrial (starch) products (12%), beverages and seed (1°A> each). The food grain production has increased by 50 per cent due to fertilizer use. Green revolution in India witnessed phenomenal increase in fertilizer consumption and it may not be desirable to spend huge sum of money towards the import of fertilizer. Moreover, the present hike in the chemical fertilizers has compelled the Indian farmers to resort to imbalanced nutrition of crops and thus reduction in crop yields. Keeping above facts in view, the investigation was carried out at crop research center of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agricultural & Technology, Meerut western Uttar Pradesh region during summer 2010. Field experiment was conducted for maize, contesting 10 treatments combinations laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with 3 replication the genotype tested for maize was kanchan. The effect of different fertilizers level had remarkable effect on growth and yield behavior of maize. Treatment T10 combination of (100°A> NPK + 5t FYM + Azotobacter+ PSB) was found maximum plant height, Numbers of green leaves, dry matter accumulation, . cob length, cob weight etc. And also to be found significantly as compare to T1 (control) treatment, same trend was observed in yield attributes r.~umber of cob per plant, number of grain per cob, 1 000 grain weight and grain yield per plant. Similar trend were noticed in respect to grain, stover yield and harvest index. The maximum NPK uptake varied significantly in T10 (100% NPK + 5t FYM +Azotobacter+ PSB) had remarkable affect on gross return (48048), higher net retum (35508) B:C ratio (2.83), However the decline yield was found in other treatments parameter.