Effect of cutting irrigation at different stages of growth and spraying with bitter melon extract on some vegetative qualities of two varieties of Zea mays L.

Abstract

Tamara Sabah Hadi*, Wisam Malik Dawood and Mohammed Ali Abood

The experiment was conducted during the autumn season 2022 at the Soil Science and Water Resources Research Station of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Diyala, with the design of (R.C.B.D.) with the Split-Split plots Design system with three repeaters, The experiment included three stages of cutting irrigation: non-cutting irrigation, cutting irrigation in the tasseling stage, cutting irrigation in the milk stage, and three concentrations of bitter melon extract as an anti-transpiration (spraying with water, 50 ml L-1, 100 ml L-1), two cultivars of maize were used, AGN720 and JAMESON, In order to study the effect of different concentrations of bitter melon extract as an antitranspiration on some vegetative characteristics of the two varieties growing under water stress conditions, the most important results were summarized as follows: The AGN720 variety surpassed the JAMESON cultivar in most of the vegetative growth characteristics. Spraying with a concentration of 100 ml L-1 has given the highest mean number of days from sowing to the tasseling, plant height, and number of leaves, leaf area and index, dry weight of shoots, with an increase of 3.32%, 13.37%, and 10. 91%, 18.72%, 18.63%, 16.70% respectively, compared to the treatment of not spraying the plant extract (spraying with water).