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ARS Home » Plains Area » Bushland, Texas » Conservation and Production Research Laboratory » Soil and Water Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #319698
Title: Grain yield, evapotranspiration, and water use efficiency of maize hybrids differing in drought tolerance

Author
item HAO, BAOZHEN - Texas A&M Agrilife
item XUE, QINGWU - Texas A&M Agrilife
item MAREK, THOMAS - Texas A&M Agrilife
item JESSUP, KIRK - Texas A&M Agrilife
item BECKER, J - Nextsteppe Seeds, Inc
item HOU, XIABO - University Of Arizona
item XU, WENWEI - Texas A&M Agrilife
item BYNUM, ED - Texas A&M Agrilife
item BEAN, BRENT - United Sorghum Checkoff
item Colaizzi, Paul
item HOWELL, TERRY - Retired ARS Employee

Submitted to: Irrigation Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/5/2018
Publication Date: 10/10/2018
Citation: Hao, B., Xue, Q., Marek, T.H., Jessup, K.E., Becker, J., Hou, X., Xu, W., Bynum, E., Bean, B.W., Colaizzi, P.D., Howell, T.A. 2018. Grain yield, evapotranspiration, and water use efficiency of maize hybrids differing in drought tolerance. Irrigation Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-018-0597-5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-018-0597-5

Interpretive Summary: The Texas High Plains is a major corn producing region, but drought and diminishing availability of irrigation water threaten to reduce production. Drought resistant corn varieties and different seeding rates may be tools that farmers can use to continue to produce corn in the region. Scientists from ARS (Bushland Texas), Texas A&M AgriLife Research, the University of Arizona, a crop commodity group, and a commercial seed company compared a new drought tolerant to a conventional corn variety. At low irrigation rates, the drought tolerant variety produced greater grain compared with the conventional variety. Different seeding rates were also tested. The drought tolerant variety produced more grain compared with the conventional variety for full, moderate, and low irrigation rates. These results are of interest to corn producers having both limited and adequate water available for irrigation.

Technical Abstract: Adoption of drought-tolerant (DT) hybrids is one viable strategy for stabilizing maize production in drought-prone environments. Our objective was to investigate grain yield, evapotranspiration (ET), and water use efficiency (WUE), for one Syngenta conventional (N58L) and one Syngenta DT hybrid (N59B), under three water regimes (I100, I75, and I50, referring to 100%, 75%, and 50% ET requirement) and three plant densities (high, moderate, and low, referring to 9.9, 7.9, and 5.9 plants m-2). Field experiments were conducted from 2011 to 2014. At I100 and I75, the DT hybrid N59B did not show a clear advantage in yield and WUE relative to the conventional hybrid N58L, however at I50 it showed a comparative advantage of 8.5% and 10.5%, respectively. Concerning the plant density treatments, for both hybrids, higher plant density resulted in greater grain yield and WUE at I100 and I75, but not at I50. Across I100 and I75, high plant density treatment had greater grain yield (9.1%) and WUE (9.4%) than low plant density. Comparing the hybrids, at the low and moderate plant densities, there were no significant differences in yield and WUE between N59B and N58L, but N59B had greater yield (5.9%) and WUE (7.3%) than N58L at the high plant density. Importantly, N59B provided a large advantage over N58L in yield (18.0%) and WUE (26.2%) when the two hybrids were grown under the dual conditions of severe water deficit (I50) and high plant density (9.9 plants m-2). When plant density increased from 7.9 to 9.9 plants m-2, yield did not change for N58L at I100 and I75, but showed a slight increase for N59B. However, at I50, this increase in plant density reduced yield significantly (14.1%) for N58L yet did not affect yield for N59B. Similar trends were also found in WUE. On average, plant density had no effect on seasonal ET, and N59B had more (I100 and I75) or same (I50) seasonal ET relative to N58L. The results of this study demonstrated that the DT hybrid N59B had clear advantages in yield and WUE over the conventional hybrid N58L under drought stress, especially under the dual conditions of severe water deficit (I50) and high plant density (9.9 plants m-2).