Effect of Phenologic and Leaf Morphologic Characteristics of New Maize Hybrids in Drought Stress

Abstract:In order to study the effects of drought stress on phenologic and leaf morphologic characteristics and different characters such as yield of fourteen new forage corn hybrids, an experiment was conducted at Seed and Plant Improvement Institute, Karaj, Iran in 2009. The experiment was carried out using split-plot in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The main plots consisted of three irrigation regimes (irrigation after 70, 100 and 130 mm cumulative evaporation from standard evaporation pan class A) and subplots included 14 new forage maize hybrids. In this experiment Kernel yield per hectare, Number of days to pollination, Number of days to silk emergence, Anthesis-silking interval, Number of ear per plant, Ear leaf chlorophyll, Leaf rolling and Leaf senescence were considered. The results showed that hybrids differences in terms of Number of days to pollination, Number of days to silk emergence and Anthesis-silking interval were significantly different (P < 0.01). But the interaction of hybrids and irrigation regimes was not significant for all of the traits. Therefore hybrids represent the same reaction to the irrigation regimes. Drought stress was significant for all the traits except number of ear per plant. Severe stress decreases dry yield for 32% percent in contrast with control.