Agronomic Responses of Corn Hybrids from Different Eras to Deficit and Adequate Levels of Water and Nitrogen
By P. O'neill, John F. Shanahan, James S. Schepers, B. Caldwell. 2004
156 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Maintaining current high yields of corn (Zea mays L.) grown in the USA poses an environmental threat due to continued overuse of water and N inputs. To reduce overreliance on inputs, future corn breeding efforts should focus on improving tolerance of corn to water and N stresses, utilizing appropriate tolerance mechanisms. The objective of this study was to identify appropriate mechanisms by characterizing agronomic responses of 12 hybrids from three different eras ('B73 x Mol7' from 1970s and three early 1990s and eight late 1990s Pioneer brand hybrids) to varying water and N supply. This was done by growing the hybrids under deficit and adequate levels of water (one-half and full evapotranspiration) and N (0 and 200 kg ha -1 ) in a field study and measuring yield and other agronomic variables. While hybrid eras didn't differ in response to varying water or N, individual hybrids varied in ability to maintain yield under water or N stress. For example, under deficit water, '3417' produced 27% more yield than '3162' while they yielded similarly under adequate water. Likewise, under deficit N, '34R07' produced 42% more grain yield than '33G27' while they yielded similarly under adequate N. Agronomic variables such as kernel number per unit area were highly correlated with grain yield (r = 0.98), indicating hybrid ability to maximize kernel number under varying water and N supply was critical to maximizing yield. Determining physiological mechanisms associated with ability to maintain kernel number under stress should be a high priority of breeding programs.
Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Plant Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ad081287edf4f0711c7a44abca3c8d8950e5115b
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Citations in the corpus
- Changes in Nitrogen Use Traits Associated with Genetic Improvement for Grain Yield of Maize Hybrids Released in Different Decades (2013, background): “Although a range of maturities (661–724°C∙d) as determined by time to 50% silk exsertion existed in the panel of era hybrids (Table 1), this range of maturities is typical for commercial maize hybrids that might be grown in east-central Illinois.”
- Maize response to elevated plant density combined with lowered N-fertilizer rate is genotype-dependent (2015, background): “Modern hybrids have shown tendencies to withstand higher levels of stresses (such as low N and high plant densities), allowing them to better sustain suitable photosynthetic rates and sufficient assimilate supplies and to maintain plant growth rates attributable to enhanced nitrogen use efficiency [”
- Use of Chlorophyll Fluorescence Assessments to Differentiate Corn Hybrid Response To Variable Water Conditions (2006, methodology): “adequate water treatment in our companion work (O’Neill et al., 2004), and illustrated in Table 1, were likely due to reductions in photosynthesis during this critical growth stage.”
- Genotypic variation and relationships between seedling and adult plant traits in maize (Zea mays L.) inbred lines grown under contrasting nitrogen levels (2012, background): “Considerable variation for N uptake and NUE have been reported among maize lines based on grain yield data (Presterl et al. 2002a, b, 2003; O’Neil et al. 2004; Uribelarrea et al. 2004).”