| Summary: | The current research was carried out to investigate field performance of three maize cultivars (S704, BC678 and H500) under non-stressed (performing 50 mm evaporation from class A evaporation pan) and stressed (performing 90 mm evaporation from class A evaporation pan) conditions at grain filling phase. Results showed that water stress during grain filling stage mainly had effects on grain weight rather than grain number per plant. Grain depth in cob and cob diameter under non-stressed condition was higher than those of water stressed condition, indicating that grain volume and especially grain yield were decreased by increasing waster stress. Maximum grain yield (7.3 ton/ha) was
obtained by S704 in comparison with other cultivars (6.6 and 6.5 ton/ha for BC678 and H500, respectively). Superiority of S704 was attributed to be more of 100 grain weight, row number per cob, grain number per cob, cob diameter and cob weight. This research suggests that there is considerable variation among studied genotypes in tolerance to water stress at grain filling stage. Thus, it is essential to provide sufficient water during grain filling stage in order to prevent yield losses in maize cultivars.
|
|---|
