Author(s):

P Mandale, BL Lakaria, SB Aher, AB Singh and SC Gupta

Abstract: The field experiment was conducted to evaluate the suitability of maize cultivars for organic production. The performance of twelve different maize cultivars viz. Kanchan, Arawali, Sona-222, JM-8, JM-12, JM-216, Pratap-5, Pratap-6, Proagro-4412, CPGB-4202, Popcorn-1 and Sweetcorn in terms of yield, uptake and soil properties was assesses under organic farming. The selected maize cultivars were grown with 100 kg organic-N ha^-1 supplied through organic manures on nitrogen equivalent basis. The results of the present study showed that the maize cultivar Proagro-4412, Kanchan, JM-12, JM-8, Pratap-6, Arawali, Pratap-5 resulted in higher yield among the studied cultivars. However the optimum yield was not obtained as the yield ranged to the tune of 3.4 to 3.5 t ha^-1. The cultivar Popcorn-1 and Sweetcorn were the least responsive cultivars under organic farming. Kanchan removed maximum nitrogen from soil followed by Proagro-4412, and JM-12 cultivars. The range of N uptake by cultivars is relatively lower as it varied between 28.1 and 61.6 kg/ha. It indicates that the supply of N from organic manure may not have met the crop demand of most of the cultivars. The P and K removal also followed almost similar trends in cultivars. The Soil properties remained unaffected except available N. The available N was recorded highest under Sweetcorn followed by CPGB-4202. Thus, most of the maize cultivars were able to perform under organic farming practices with the 100 kg N equivalent dose of organic manures but the optimum potential of cultivars may be assessed under varied nitrogen and sowing time.

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