Evaluation of the response of spring maize varieties in different plant geometry at Sundarbazar, Lamjung

A field experiment in this study was conducted in Agronomy farm of Lamjung Campus during 2015 in 2 factorial Randomized Complete Block Design with 4 replications and six treatments. Factor A was the variety (Arun-2 and Arun-4) and B was three levels of spacing (80 cm x 25 cm, 60 cm x 25 cm and 40 cm x 25 cm). Results showed that there was non-significant difference between two varieties while differences were found in different spacing on grain yield. The highest grain yield (4.93 t ha-1) was obtained from the highest plant population (100000 plants ha-1) followed by lowest plant population (50000 plants ha-1) (4.38 t ha-1) and medium plant population (66666 plants ha-1) (3.83 t ha-1). Regarding the interaction effect between variety x spacing, there was statistically highly significant effect found on grain yield. The comparison of the mean values of the grain yield for interaction between variety and spacing showed that Arun-4 cultivar in 40 x 25 cm plant had the highest grain yield (5.1 t ha-1) followed by Arun-2 with the same spacing (4.8 t ha-1). The higher grain yield in high plant density plots might be due to higher number of effective plants ha-1 (73281) with high number of cobs ha-1 compared to medium plant density (50104 plants ha-1) and low plant density (38946 plants ha-1). Comparatively, the variety Arun-4 was found superior on final grain yield (4.43 t ha-1) compared to Arun-2 (4.34 t ha-1). From the results, it is concluded that Arun-4 variety with the highest plant population (100000 plants ha-1) is better to grow in rainfed lowland (Khet land) as spring maize in western mid hills of Nepal.