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Study area is located in Semi-arid hilly area of Loess Plateau in China, geographical environment is complex and soil erosion is serious,so it is important that saving water to develop agricultural and livestock. By way of supplementary irrigation,using principal component analysis based on factor analysis three principal components can include basically all the variation contains of 7 ear characters.It is can be shown that ear kernel weight and ear weight are limiting factors affecting maize yield and the factor loading are 0.9748 and 0.9651 respectively in the principal component analysis. Ear kernel weight of supplemental irrigation is 62.2%similar to 77.8% higher than that of ear kernel weight under no irrigation condition at jointing stage. Using supplemental irrigation at jointing kernel weight per ear is more than 1.82 g/mm at filling.Supplemental irrigation in critical period of maize growth is an effective way to water saving and increasing yield in semi-arid loess hilly region.