Abstract

Corn (Zea mays L.) is one of the most cultivated grains in the world. It provides widely used products such as food, feed, raw materials for industry and ethanol, mainly due to the quantity and nature of its reserves accumulated in the grains. The objective of this research was to evaluate different depths of sowing and the use of different initial methods of soil preparation for growing corn. A randomized-complete blocks design was applied in a split plot with subsoiling, tillage, rotary hoe, ploughing, manual weeding and three sowing depths. Analysis of variance showed a significant difference (p < 0.01) of stem diameter (SD), plant height (PH), root fresh mass (RFM), root dry mass (RDM), aerial dry mass (ADM), aerial fresh mass (AFM), while number of leaves (NL) showed no differences statistically. Regarding to stem diameter, the methods with subsoiling, ploughing and rotating hoe showed the best results. In relation to plant height, the treatments of subsoiling, tillage, ploughing and rotating hoe had the best performances. The use of the subsoiling method showed the best results between the characteristics of the plant and corn yield. The corn yield presented better yields with the subsoiled and rotary hoe preparation.

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