Evaluation of Growth and Yield of Four Maize ( Zea mays L.) Cultivars Under Northern Sudan Conditions

This study was aimed to evaluate some vegetative and reproductive growth, yield and yield components parameters of Four maize cultivars namely Hudebia-1, Hudeiba-2, Mugtama-45 and Balady. A randomized complete block design with four replications was used to execute the experiment. The experiment was conducted at the Demonstration Farm of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences –University of Dongola- Sudan (Latitude 19˚ 11˝ N and Longitude 30˚ 29˝ E and altitude 227m ASL) during the summer season 2016. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among maize cultivars in all vegetative and reproductive growth parameters studied namely. Plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves / plant, days to 50% tasselling, days to 50% siliking and days to maturity. Also , differences among maize cultivars was significant for yield and yield components characters with the exception of number of rows/ cob which exhibited no significant differences, these include cob length, , number of seeds/row, number of seeds/co, 100 seed weight and grains yield. The cultivar Hueiba-2 produced 48% significantly greater yield than Baldy cultivar.Keywords: Maize, Cultivars, Vegetative and reproductive growth, Yield, yield component