Effect of Seed Treatment on Flower Synchronization, Seed Yield and Quality of DMH-2 Maize Hybrid

The present investigation was carried out to study the influence of seed treatment with hydration, gibberellic acid and soil application of additional nitrogen in combination with urea spray to female parent (CI-4) and only Abcisic acid seed treatment to male (KDMI-10) on synchronization of flowering between the parental lines, seed yield and quality of hybrid maize DMH-2 during kharif 2010. Female parent flowered late by six days than male with simultaneous sowing. Among the different techniques to achieve synchronization of flowering, pre sowing seed hydration (6hrs) + 10% additional N soil application to female parent (T₅) resulted in better synchronization of flowering (1.34 days) and resulted in significantly highest seed yield (38.33 q/ha) over simultaneous sowing control (23.07 q/ha). This treatment also hastened the first flowering in female parent (47.33 days) and increased the cob length, cob weight (163.00 g/plant), number of seeds rows per cob (14.00), seed weight per cob (132.07 g), seed set % (96.45), 100 seed weight (29.79 g) and fodder yield (3.33 q) compared to other treatments. Among the seed treatments, T₅ has given better seed quality followed by (T₁) Soil application 25% N to female parent (CI -4).