Abstract

Production and productivity of maize at irrigation season of Fogera plain is limited mainly due to lack of recommended high-yielding varieties. Hence, five improved maize varieties were evaluated at Fogera during the irrigation season of 2021/22 with the aim of identifying the best performed high yielder maize variety/varieties in the study area. The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The data were recorded on days to maturity, plant height, ears per plant, cob length, cob diameter, cob weight, grains per cob, straw yield, 1000 kernel weight and grain yield. Significant differences were obtained between the varieties on days to maturity, plant height, cob width, cob weight, number of grains per cob and grain yield. The correlation coefficient analysis showed a significant and very strong positive association of grain yield with cob diameter (r=0.90*). Cob diameter also had highly significant and very strongly positive association (r=0.98**) with cob weight. The maximum cob length (20.47cm), cob width (5.447cm), cob weight (350.4g) and 1000 kernel weight (410.3g) were recorded from BH-549. Variety BH-549 had also showed the highest grain yield of 6083kg/ha followed by BH-546(4721kg/ ha). These two varieties provided 45.56% and 12.97% yield advantages over the national (4179kg/ha) average productivity of maize in the country, respectively. Hence, BH-549 and BH-546 was found to be the most promising potential varieties to increase the average yield of maize at the irrigation season of Fogera. Therefore, these two varieties could be recommended to demonstrate in the large areas with production packages at the irrigation season of Fogera district and similar agro ecologies.