干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

This experiment was achieved to survey the effects of drought stress on seed yield and its components in three sweet corn cultivars. The experiment was performed by using the split plot design in the layout randomized completely block design with three replications in Arid and Dry land Regions Research Station, Kashan in 2009. In this research, the irrigation intervals including four, six, eight and ten days were established as the main factor levels and arranged in the main plots. On the other hand, the sweet corn cultivars including Chase, Shaker and Iranian cultivars were considered as the sub-factor levels and randomly arranged in the sub-plots. Four and ten days irrigation intervals showed the highest and the lowest seed yield, respectively. The seed yield loss was due to decrease in number of seed rows/ear and number of seeds/row. Mean comparison among the cultivars revealed that Shaker had the highest seed and biological yield. As well as, comparison of the mean of interaction effects of cultivars and irrigation intervals indicated maximum seed yield in Shaker (16375.5 kg/ha) under non-drought stress condition (four days irrigation) and minimum seed yield in Chase cultivar (1193.3 kg/ha) under severe stress condition (10 days irrigation). In non-stress as well as severe stress condition, maximum seed yield and harvest index were obtained from Shaker cultivar. Therefore, Shaker was suggested as the most drought tolerant cultivar to drought. This cultivar also indicated high yield potential to propose in non-stress conditions.