Study the Ethephon application and male inflorescence detopping on quality and quantity traits of maize

This experiment was conducted to study the ethephon application and male inflorescence topping on the quality and quantity characters of maize at the research farm of agriculture faculty, Islamic Azad university- Sanandaj branch during 2016-2017 year. The research was carried out as split plot in a completely randomized block design with three replications. In this experiment, ethephon spraying was used as the main factor in six different levels (control: distilled water, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 liter per hectare), and the sub factor was the removal of tassels in two levels (non-removal: control and removal of tassel or male inflorescence). The results showed that the effect of ethephon was significant on characters as: dry weight (leaf, stem, cob with its leaves and seed), number of rows per cob, number of seeds per row, 1000 seed weight, grain yield, biological yield, protein and oil percentage. In this experiment, the maximum grain yield was obtained by ethephon at 0.5 liter per hectare, which increased by 34.56% compared to control. Maximum biological yield was obtained from 0.5 and 1.5 liters per hectare, which increased by 40.89% and 41.22%, respectively, in comparison with control. The effect of tassel removal on all traits was significant. The maximum grain yield and biological yield were obtained from tassel removal, which was more by 14.83 and 11.13%, respectively, compared to control. The results of interaction effects were shown that the highest grain yield and biological yield were obtained from 0.5 and 1.5 liter ethephon with tassel removal, respectively.