Effect of crop geometry and nutrient levels on growth, yield and economics of maize

Introduction

Maize (Zea mays L.) often referred to as the "Queen of Cereals" is an important cereal crop of India and has wide applications as food, feed and industrial raw material. Its adaptability to diverse environments and capacity to produce substantial biomass within a comparatively short period make it an important crop for improving farm productivity. The productivity of maize is closely associated with appropriate agronomic management, particularly crop geometry and nutrient supply. Crop geometry determines plant distribution and consequently influences the capture and utilization of solar radiation, water and nutrients. Suitable spatial arrangement can improve plant performance, photosynthetic activity and source-sink relationships (Aliveni et al., 2025) [1] . Nutrient management is another major determinant of maize growth and yield. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium have complementary roles in vegetative development, energy transfer, photosynthesis, assimilate production and grain formation. Increasing nutrient availability can enhance biomass accumulation and yield components when the additional supply is effectively utilized by the crop (Maeda et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2019; Medici et al., 2019) [8,6,10] . Previous studies cited in the present investigation have reported beneficial effects of appropriate planting geometry and increased fertility levels on maize growth, yield and economics (Mahapatra et al., 2006 and Kar et al., 2006) [9,7] . Despite the recognized importance of these practices, their combined response can vary with genotype and growing conditions. Therefore, the present investigation was undertaken at Nagpur to study the effects of different crop geometries and nutrient levels on growth, yield and economics of maize variety PDKV Aarambh. The objectives were to study the effect of crop geometry on maize growth, to assess the impact of nutrient levels on maize yield and to work out the economics of the treatments.

Materials and Methods

The field experiment entitled was conducted during kharif 2025-26 at Field No. 10 of the Agronomy Farm, College of Agriculture, Nagpur. The experiment was conducted in Factorial Randomized Block Design (FRBD) with three crop geometries and three nutrient levels, having nine treatment combinations replicated thrice. Maize was sown on 28 June 2025 by dibbling two seeds per hill according to the assigned geometry. Gap filling and thinning were carried out to maintain the required plant population. Nitrogen was applied through urea in two splits, with half as basal and half at 30 days after sowing, while the full doses of phosphorus and potassium were applied at sowing through single super phosphate and muriate of potash, respectively. The crop was maintained weed-free through intercultural operations and herbicide application. Harvesting was carried out manually at physiological maturity. During the crop growth period (June-November) total rainfall received was 1217 mm, data pertaining to yield attributes were recorded from randomly selected five plants from each net plot and the mean value was calculated. Cost of cultivation was worked out with help of prevailing market prices of finger millet.

The data was statistically analyzed with standard method outlined for randomized block design (Gomez and Gomez, 1984) [5] .

Statistically significance was tested by F-value at 0.05% level of probability and critical difference was worked out wherever the effect was significant.

Results and Discussion

Yield attributes

Number of cobs plant -1 was not significantly affected by either crop geometry or nutrient level. Numerically, the paired-row geometry recorded 2.19 cobs plant -1 . Cob length, cob weight, number of grains cob -1 , grain yield plant -1 and straw yield plant -1 were significantly improved under the tested crop geometries, with the paired-row geometry recording 22.74 cm cob length, 120.31 g cob weight, 400.28 grains cob -1 66.16 g grain yield plant -1 and 77.14 g straw yield plant -1 . The improved individualplant performance under paired rows was associated with greater space and resource availability. Similar responses were reported by Sultani and Bakhtyar (2025) [11] and Tanisha et al. (2026) [12] . Nutrient level 180:90:90 recorded the highest values for these yield attributes, except that number of cobs plant -1 and seed index were non-significant. The improved yield components with higher nutrient supply were associated with better nutrient availability and assimilate production.

Grain and straw yield

Grain yield was significantly influenced by crop geometry. The highest grain yield (75.47 q ha -1 ) was obtained with 45 cm × 20 cm followed by 60 cm × 15 cm (72.13 q ha -1 ) while 45/90 cm × 20 cm produced 52.76 q ha -1 . Although the paired-row arrangement improved individual-plant yield attributes, its lower plant population reduced yield ha -1 . The 45 cm × 20 cm geometry combined adequate plant population with favourable resource distribution and consequently recorded the highest grain and straw yields. Similar results were reported by Sultani and Bakhtyar (2025) [11] , Bhusal et al. (2025) [4] and Tanisha et al.

(2026) [12] . Nutrient levels produced a progressive increase in grain yield, from 64.11 q ha -1 with 120:60:60 to 69.65 q ha -1 with 180:90:90 kg N: P 2 O 5 :K 2 O ha -1 . The increased nutrient supply likely enhanced vegetative growth, photosynthetic activity, assimilates production and grain development. These findings are supported by Alka et al. (2019) [3] and Abhigna et al. (2024) [2] . Straw yield followed a similar pattern, with the highest value under 45 cm × 20 cm among crop geometries and under 180:90:90 among nutrient levels. The interaction effect was non-significant.

Economics

Economics clearly reflected the yield response of the treatments. Crop geometry significantly influenced gross monetary returns, net monetary returns and benefit:cost ratio. The 45 cm × 20 cm geometry recorded the highest gross monetary returns (Rs. 1,75,805 ha -1 ), net monetary returns (Rs. 1,32,573 ha -1 ) and benefit: cost ratio (4.07), followed by 60 cm × 15 cm. The pairedrow geometry had lower returns because of its lower grain and straw productivity. Similar economic advantages of suitable planting geometry have been reported by Kar et al. (2006) [7] . Nutrient levels increased gross and net monetary returns progressively. The highest gross monetary returns (Rs. 1,62,123

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementI am sincerely thankful to the Associate Dean, for providing all the necessary facilities.

References

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