CORN DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION IN FUNCTION OF SOURCES OF NITROGEN FERTILIZERS AND DOSES¹

DESENVOLVIMENTO E PRODUÇÃO DE MILHO EM FUNÇÃO DE DOSES E FONTES DE ADUBOS NITROGENADOS

ABSTRACT

Nitrogen (N) is one of the nutrients that have the most significant effect on corn grain productivity increase. In order to evaluate the effect of sources of N topdressing and doses in the grown corn culture, in a conventional till system, it was installed an experiment in the city of Urutaí, Goiás, in the 2012/13 crop, in clayey textured Red Latosol. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with four replications, with the treatments arranged in a factorial 3 x 5, consisting of three sources (coated urea, urea and ammonium sulfate) and five doses (0, 60, 120, 180 and 240 kg ha^-1) of N, topdressing, applied in the surface and in a single dose, when the corn plants were in V4 stage. The hybrid used was the P3646H. We evaluated the following characters: stem diameter, plant height, height of ear insertion, leaf N, number of ears per plant, ear length, number of rows per ear, number of grains per row, 100 grains mass and grain productivity. All characters have a response to nitrogen fertilization and only the height of ear insertion showed no significant difference between sources. The source coated urea showed the best results, indicating that its use may be compensatory, especially in favorable conditions for the NH₃ volatilization, as the application of high doses of N in the surface.

Keywords:
Nitrogen fertilization; Ammonium sulfate; Urea; Coated urea; Zea mays L.