Planting scenarios for maize cropping under drought conditions

Water management is an essential concept for water intensive crop such as maize dealing with water shortage under drought conditions. Maize production is ranked after wheat and barely in Fars province, Iran. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the effects of planting methods by conventional and modified planters on maize growth and yield at different irrigation regimes under semi-arid conditions. Irrigation treatments were full and deficit irrigation (100 and 80% of crop evapotranspiraton (ETc), respectively), and planting methods of on-bed and in-furrow bottom. Experiments were conducted and analysed in a split plots design (planting methods as a main plot and irrigation as a sub-plot) with three replications. Though planting methods did not significantly affect the yield; total dry matter yield increased by 3.7% for in-furrow bottom planting as compared with that obtained in on-bed planting. Water productivity (WP) was significantly affected by irrigation treatments. Maximum WP for total dry matter was obtained at 80% of ETc and in-bottom of furrow planting by 4.6 kg m-3. Considering the soil moisture content during the growing season, planting in-furrow bottom and deficit irrigation as 80% of ETc is recommendable for drought conditions.