SELIM , M. M
Field Crop Research Department, National Research Centre ,Dokki, Cairo , Egypt Tel: 02012-4140060 Fax: 0202-3370931 E-mail: selim_nrc11@yahoo.com or selim_family@hotmail.com
Throughout, the world fresh water supplies are being depleted and irrigated farmlands are undergoing salinization. Under Egyptian condition most of the cultivated area are depends upon flood irrigation. Recently, the demand for irrigation water increases due to the cultivation of new lands available for horizontal expansion. Therefore the management of irrigation assumes great importance to improve water use efficiency. The optimum irrigation interval is one of the methods that have been used to manage water application. Maize plant is considered as the most sensitive grain crop to water stress. Two field experiments were carried out at clay loam soil in middle Egypt to study the effect of different irrigation interval (10 – 15 and 20 days) under different plant populations (15 – 20 and 30 thousand plants/feddan) on growth, yield and yield component characters as well as grain chemical composition of three maize cultivars, i.e., single cross-10 , three way cross – 310 and open pollinated variety Giza-2. The results obtained reveal that significant differences were found among the tested maize cultivars under different plant populations with respect to growth patterns, yield and yield component characters. Moreover, results also revealed that soil moisture stress have a serious effect on final grain yield.