Performance evaluation of maize cultivars for organic production

Abstract

The field experiment was conducted to evaluate the suitability of maize cultivars for organic production. The performance of twelve different maize cultivars viz. Kanchan, Arawali, Sona-222, JM-8, JM-12, JM-216, Pratap-5, Pratap-6, Proagro-4412, CPGB-4202, Popcorn-1 and Sweetcorn in terms of yield, uptake and soil properties was assesses under organic farming. The selected maize cultivars were grown with 100 kg organic-N ha-1 supplied through organic manures on nitrogen equivalent basis. The results of the present study showed that the maize cultivar Proagro-4412, Kanchan, JM-12, JM-8, Pratap-6, Arawali, Pratap-5 resulted in higher yield among the studied cultivars. However the optimum yield was not obtained as the yield ranged to the tune of 3.4 to 3.5 t ha-1. The cultivar Popcorn-1 and Sweetcorn were the least responsive cultivars under organic farming. Kanchan removed maximum nitrogen from soil followed by Proagro-4412, and JM-12 cultivars. The range of N uptake by cultivars is relatively lower as it varied between 28.1 and 61.6 kg/ha. It indicates that the supply of N from organic manure may not have met the crop demand of most of the cultivars. The P and K removal also followed almost similar trends in cultivars. The Soil properties remained unaffected except available N. The available N was recorded highest under Sweetcorn followed by CPGB-4202. Thus, most of the maize cultivars were able to perform under organic farming practices with the 100 kg N equivalent dose of organic manures but the optimum potential of cultivars may be assessed under varied nitrogen and sowing time.