Enhancing productivity and quality of fodder maize through soil and foliar zinc nutrition

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Forage Research and Management Centre, NDRI, Karnal during <italic>Kharif</italic> season of 2014 and 2015 to study the effect of zinc application on productivity and quality of fodder maize. The treatment consists of two fodder maize cultivars African tall and J-1006 in main plot and six zinc sulphate treatments <italic>viz.</italic> No zinc sulphate, 10 kg/ha ZnSO<sub>4</sub> as basal dose, 20 kg/ha ZnSO<sub>4</sub> as basal dose, 0.5% one foliar spray of ZnSO<sub>4</sub> at 30 DAS, 0.5% two foliar spray of ZnSO<sub>4</sub> at 30 and 45 DAS and 10 kg/ha ZnSO<sub>4</sub> as basal dose+0.5% one foliar spray at 30 DAS in subplots of split plot design. Soil and foliar applied zinc sulphate had significantly improved green fodder, dry matter yield and quality parameters <italic>viz</italic> leaf length, leaf width, leaf stem ratio of both the cultivars tested. From the results of two year study, it can be concluded that maize fodder productivity and quality can be enhanced with Zinc fertilization.