Maize (Zea-Mays) performance at different cultivation systems

Three acres of land each were allotted to two different cultivation systems. It was a 2 × 2 × 3 factorial design with 2 seasons- 1st planting year and 2nd planting year; 2 cultivation systems- plough only tagged PO with three replicates PO1, PO2, PO3; and plough-harrow-plough tagged PHP with three replicates PHP1, PHP2, PHP3. A high yield breed of flour maize (Amylaceace), well-treated yellow colour of 70 days maturity period was planted. Among the parameters measured were the weights of the grains and harvest indices, same conditions were provided for all the plots in term of fertilizer, herbicides and same soil types. One way ANOVA was used for the statistical analysis. The results shows that significant (p= 0.000, p<0.05) different was observed between the yield of maize and different cultivation systems in the first planting and second planting years. Significant (p = 0.001; p<0.05) different was observed between the harvest index of maize and different cultivation systems in the first planting and second planting years. The R2 values for the correlation coefficients for the harvest index were 0.38 for the first year and 0.95 for second year. The highest figure of merit was 0.0469 kg/acre/Naira for plot PO while plot PHP had 0.0356 kg/acre/Naira. This was 31.74% increment in the figure of merit for the plough only plot PO over the plough-harrow-plough plot PHP. Keywords:, cultivation systems, harvest indices, weights, yiel