Cultivars adapted to environments poor in nitrogen and capable to associate with diazotrophic bacteria can represent an alternative for the producion of maize in agricultural systems which uses few amounts of fertilizers. Aiming at identifying efficient maize cultivars in nitrogen uptake and diazitrophic bacteria association an experiment was carried out with 32 maize cultivars under different doses of nitrogen. The highest detection of diazotrophic population, the smallest effect of N fetilization and the highest nitrogen content under no nitrogen fertlization can indicate that Santa Helena 8447 may be a promising cultivar to be used in further studies to select efficient cultivars for cultivation in soils of low fertility.
nitrogen fixing bacteria; Zea mays
