DESEMPENHO AGRONÔMICO DE MILHO CULTIVADO COM FONTES E DOSES DE BORO

Abstract

Corn is a crop of great socioeconomic importance, due to its high energy value and use in human and animal food. The objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic characteristics of maize cultivated with sources and doses of B. The experimental design was in randomized blocks, factorial 3x4 with three sources of B (boric acid, borax and ulexite) and four doses (0; 1,5; 3,0 and 4,5 kg ha-1), with four replications per treatment. The experiment was carried out in 2 consecutive harvests. The analyzed variables were: Plant height, Height of insertion of the first ear, Length of the ear, Number of rows of grains per ear, Number of grains per row, Mass of a thousand grains and Productivity. Data were subjected to analysis of variance and means compared by Tukey's test at 5% significance. For Ear Length there was interaction between the factors in the first year, at the Dose of 1,5 kg ha-1 Boric Acid was superior to the other Sources, and using Boric Acid, the Dose of 1,5 kg ha-1 was superior to the others for this variable. For Productivity there was a difference between Sources and Doses in the 2 harvests, where Ulexite was superior to the other Sources in both occasions. With regard to Doses, according to the regression analysis, the Dose of 1,6 kg ha-1 showed the highest productivity in the first harvest, and the Dose of 2,03 kg ha-1 in the second harvest. For Plant Height, Height of insertion of the first ear, Number of Rows of grains, Number of Grains per row and Mass of 1000 grains, there was no difference between the Sources and Doses of B.