Published in Scientific Papers. Series A. Agronomy, Vol. LXII, Issue 1
Written by Viorica URECHEAN, Ioana Claudia BORLEANU, Florica COLĂ
Corn (Zea mays. L), the most widespread agricultural crop in Romania, is frequently affected by drought. In order to investigate and quantify the effect of drought stress (hydric and thermal stress) on grain yield at seven hybrids of corn, an experiment was conducted in a randomized block with three replications during 2017 and 2018 at ARDS Simnic. Year 2017 was considered a dry year (with water and thermal deficiency), and 2018 a year favorable to corn (without stress). Six stress tolerance indices, including mean productivity (MP), geometric mean productivity (GMP), Yield Index (YI), Yield stability index (YSI), stress susceptibility (SSI) and stress tolerance index (STI) were used. The ANOVA test showed significant differences between the two culture conditions for the production. All hybrids experimented under favorable crop conditions (without stress) have achieved higher yields (7.37-10.16 tons/ha) and under drought conditions had a lower yield of 38% (4.32-6.16 tons/ha). The grain yield under drought conditions (stress) (Ys) was having significant positive correlation with GMP, YI, YSI and significant negative correlation with SSI. The yield under favorable field conditions (no-stress) (Yp) had a strong positive correlation only with MP index The verification of drought-tolerant crops using this rankings method indicated the hybrids HSF 158-14, HSF 734-13 and F376 as the most tolerant of drought.
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