IMPACT OF CROP RESIDUE, FETILIZER AND THEIR PLACEMENT TECHNIQUE ON YIELD AND RELATED TRAITS OF MAIZE (Zea mays L.)

Crop residue incorporation is an environment friendly strategy which is becoming a common soil management practice for sustainability of soil fertility. To study the impact of various placement techniques of different crop residues (i.e. legume residue and wheat straw), fertilizer-N and their various combinations on maize crop; an experiment was conducted at New Developmental Research Farm of University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakthunkhwa. The crop residue/fertilizer was applied at three-placement depths i.e. surface, shallow (3 cm) and deep (6 cm) incorporation for evaluating its utilization efficiency by maize. Randomized complete block design in a split plot arrangement was used in the experiment. Placement depths of the residues/fertilizer showed inconsistent results and did not express significant differences for most of the observations. However, shallow incorporation of the treatments showed good results in terms of ears per plant, total aboveground biomass yield, grains per ear and grain yield. Recommended rate of N-fertilizer and mixture of half fertilizer and full rate of legume residues showed better performance than all other treatments. Maize showed better utilization of N-fertilizer and responded with best results in terms of 1000-grain weight, aboveground biomass and grain yield. Mixture of half fertilizer and legume residue increased performance of maize showing good results for ears per plant and grains per ear. Control (no residue/no fertilizer) showed poor results for almost all traits. While wheat straw amended treatments also had poor effect on the overall growth and development of maize.