Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Field Laboratory in Bangladesh Agricultural University to evaluate the effect of AMF inocu- lation and Zn fertilizer management on growth and yield of hybrid maize Kohinoor 1820. The experiment consisted of two levels of AMF inoculation (AMF-inoculated and non-inoculated) and five levels of Zn fertilizer manage- ment. The Zn management regimes were NoZinc = no Zn fertilizer (control); Basal100 = 100% recommended dose (RD) of Zn fertilizer added during final land preparation; Foliar100@EV = 100% RD of Zn was applied as foliar spray during early vegetative (EV) stage; Folar100@Rp = 100% RD of Zn was applied as foliar spray during reproductive (Rp) stage; Foliar@50EV+50Rp = 100% RD of Zn fertilizer was applied as foliar spray by equal split during EV and Rp stages. ZnSO4.7H2O @15 kg ha−1 was used for basal application and 0.1% of the same fertilizer was used as foliar spray. The experiment was laid out a factorial randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 3 replica- tions. ‘Serakinkon’, a commercially available AMF inoculum was collected from Japan and used in the experiment. The inoculum mainly consisted of Gigaspora margarita species of AMF. It was found that both AMF inocu- lation and Zn fertilizer management significantly affected leaf greenness (SPAD value), number of cobs plant−1, number of seeds cob−1, weight of 1000 grains, and grain yield (all p

Key words: AMF, hybrid maize , yield, zinc, foliar spray