Adoption of new technologies for the corn crop (Zea mays L.), such as row spacing reduction and increasing in population density has become a usual practice in Brazil. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of row spacing variation and sowing density on the corn crop in an experiment carried out in the Santa Rita Farm, Araporã-MG. The experiment was arranged in a complete randomized block design, in a 3x2 factorial scheme, consisting of two spacings (0,45 m and 0,90 m) and three population densities (60000 pl.ha-1, 75000 pl.ha-1 and 90000 pl.ha-1) with four repetitions. Each plot consisted of four lines with 4 m long. The 2 central lines were considered as the usable area, discarding 0,5 m at the end of each row. The evaluated agronomic traits were: steam diameter, plant height, corn spike height, yield, 1000 grain weight, corn spikes length, number of rows of grains in a spike, number of grains in a row and percentage of corn spikes per plot (%). Data were examined by the analysis of variance, and means were compared by Tukey test at 5% probability level. The results showed a significant increase in yield with both the spacing reduction and the increase in population density; therefore showing the viability of using these technologies for the given cultivar.
Plant arrangement; Zea Mayz L.; yield
