Management of Source-Sink Balance for Maintaining Seed Vigor and Storability of Maize
- 1 Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
- 2 Botany and Herbarium Research Group, Plant Varieties Protection Office, Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Royal Thai Government, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand
- 3 Forest Ecosystems Research Group, Center for Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use (CBL) Universität Göttingen, Buesgenweg 1, D-37077 Göttingen, FRG, Germany
Abstract
Defoliation was the major factor which directly affected to maize seed yield and quality basis on source-sink relationship. Thus, the objectives were to study the effect of source-sink balance management on corn seed vigor and storability and to determine the effect of defoliation treatments on maize yield, yield components and produced seed germination traits. The experiment was arranged basis on Split-Plot in Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications. Main plot was the pattern of leave cutting with 5 levels: D1 = control, (without defoliating), D2 = complete defoliation, D3 = defoliating only under the ear, D4 = remain 2 top leaves, D5 = remain ear leaf. Sup-plot was leaf cutting dates which were C1 = 7 days after silking, C2 = 10 days after silking, C3 = 13 days after silking and C4 = 16 days after silking. Complete defoliation severely reduced ear weight, row number per ear, seed number per ear and 100 - seed weight (P<5%). Defoliation treatments had much more significantly affected on produced seed germination and seed vigor traits. Leaf defoliation intensity and leaf position affected total dry matter. Conclusion, the leaf defoliation only below ears was useful for source-sink balance management, because it promoted the seed qualities and vigor following to principle of parasitic sink elimination.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ojbsci.2021.199.205
Copyright: © 2021 Sirinthorn Kaewchuai, Pitipong Thobunluepop, Sutkhet Nakasathien, Sukumarn Lertmongkol, Damrongvudhi Onwimol, Wilasinee Chitbanchong and Michael Bredemeier. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Maize
- Source
- Sink
- Vigor and Storability