Authors : Zeljko Pandurovic, Vesna Dragicevic, Djordje Glamoclija and Zoran Dumanovic
Abstract: Soil acidity is a limiting factor which affects growth, height and yield stability of many crops grown for food and feed all over the world. To combat soil acidity many measures were introduced: Acidity decrease with lime application with or without improvement with manure development or development of germplasm tolerant to acid soils. In this study, researchers examined influence of different cropping measures on productive characteristics of maize grown for feed on acid soil in rain-fed conditions. Cropping measures included fertilization (mineral fertilizers, lime and farmyard manure) and two cropping densities (54,900 and 59,500 plants ha-1). Positive effects of liming were reflected at first on increase of pH values, particularly pH in KCl but it could increase available P and decrease exchangeable H+ and Al3+. Meteorological factors showed the significant impact on variations of maize growth and yielding parameters. Genotype also highly influenced maize growth, so hybrid with the highest height to tassel and to ear had the lowest average yield. Due to its height, this hybrid could be potentially appropriate for forage production. Treatments which include lime increased growth, yielding and their interdependence also. Favourable meteorological conditions increased variation of growth parameters between applied treatments, giving advantage to treatment with mineral fertilizer + lime + farmyard manure while unfavourable conditions suppress such variation, together with decrease of examined parameters. Higher yield potential obtained in variant with mineral fertilizer + lime under unfavourable conditions may suggest that manure incorporation could be inefficient measure for gaining high grain yields under this conditions.
Zeljko Pandurovic, Vesna Dragicevic, Djordje Glamoclija and Zoran Dumanovic, 2013. Possibilities of Maize Cropping for Feed on Acid Soil. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 12: 813-822.