Assessment of sowing dates and spacing for indogangetic plain zone kharif maize(Zea mays) cultivars to achieve higher productivity in Western IGP

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of sowing dates and spacing on the productivity of newly developed maize cultivars at 2 locations, viz. Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, and ICAR-Indian Institute of Maize Research, Ladhowal, Punjab during kharif 2021 and 2022. Results revealed that the optimum range of temperature during the growth period had favourable impact on dry matter accumulation at the silking stage with sowing dates of 15 June and 30 June. At Ludhiana and Ladhowal, maize sown on 15 June and 30 June recorded significantly higher yield attributes such as cob weight, grains/ cob and 1000-grains weight as compared to maize sown on 1 June and 15 July. Sowing dates of 15 June and 30 June recorded at par grain yield of maize in loamy sand soil at Ludhiana in both years. On the other hand, at Ladhowal in sandy loam soil, the maize sowing on 15 June recorded the highest maize grain yield followed by on 30 June in both years. Likewise, a yield penalty of 27.16–28.59% and 21.69–24.43% was registered with maize sown on 15 July as compared to maize sown on 15 June at Ludhiana and Ladhowal, respectively over the years. New cultivars of maize outperformed at various planting densities at both locations. Planting density of 67.5 cm × 15 cm having 98,765 plants/ha gave a higher grain yield compared to 67.5 × 18 cm (82,305 plants/ha) at both locations. Among the different cultivars, ‘JH 19014’ (5.35–5.03 t/ha) and ‘JH 17011’ (5.31–5.17 t/ha) performed superior over ‘PMH 13’ (5.18–4.87 t/ha) at both locations.