Therefore, due to the increasing concerns about the destructive environmental effects of high consumption of nitrogen fertilizers and also the high economic cost of supplying these fertilizers, the present study was done to evaluate the growth, development and yield of three common maize cultivars in Response to different amounts of nitrogen in semi-arid climatic conditions of Kerman province .

A two-year experiment was laid out as a randomized complete block design with factorial arrangement of treatments and three replications during 2014 and 2015 growing seasons at Kerman province in Iran. Four nitrogen rates (0 (control), 92, 220 and 368 kg ha-1) were applied to three maize hybrids (KSC 704, Maxima and TWC 604).

Results showed both hybrid and nitrogen had significant (P<0.01) effect on morphology, biological and grain yield of maize. We found the significant yield benefits of KSC 704 and Maxima compared to TWC 604 under N stress as well as potential conditions. However, the grain yield of all hybrids was lower in 2015 than 2014 which was a consequence of depletion of soil N as a result of previous maize on one side and light texture of the soil (consisting about 85% sand) on the other side which led to high N leaching from the soil. The highest and lowest values for grain yield was observed at 368 kg N ha-1 (12359.3 kg ha-1) in 2014 and 0 kg N ha-1 in 2015 (640 kg ha-1) respectively.