Response of maize (Zea mays L.) growth and yield to different fertilizer application in Rainforest agroecological zone of Nigeria: Evaluation of CERES-maize crop model

Field trials were carried out in the Rainforest agroecological zone of Nigeria to assess the usefulness of the CERES – maize model as a decision support tool for optimizing growth and yield production of maize crop through varying application of organic manure as well as recommended NPK 20:10:10 fertilizer rate. The experiment was laid in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) in three (3) replications. The trial was conducted in the 2016 growing season at the Teaching and Research Farm, Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) to calibrate and evaluate the performance of three (3) maize cultivars (Suwan-1-SR-Y, ART/98/SW1, ART/98/SW6 respectively) using sunshine organic manure (SOM) applied at the rate of 0, 60, 90, and 120 kg ha-1 and NPK 20:10:10 applied at a recommended rate of 70 kg N ha-1. Model performance across fertilizer management was evaluated using some statistical indicators such as Mean Square error (RMSE), Mean bias error (MBE), and R2 to measure its efficacy. Results showed that the model predictions captured the agronomic response of all the maize cultivars used across the fertilizer application rates. However, the model predicts accurately maize grain yield and total biomass with NPK 20:10:10 at 70kgNha-1 better than different rates of sunshine organic manure (SOM) application for all the maize cultivars. The result further showed good agreement between the model predicted and observed data with low RMSE of ≤ 1day for anthesis and ≤ 5 days for physiological maturity while the total leaf number ranged from 1.9 – 2.7. Model accuracy for predicting grain yield and total biomass was also good, for both the calibration and validation with lowest RMSE and NRMSE of the observed mean values