Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding

Rainfall trends and maize productivity in diverse agro-climatic regions of India

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Historical data on climatic parameters as well as yield data
on maize are important to look into past setbacks and
achievements. In the present study, we have analysed the
grain yield of the best entry, the best check and trial mean
of full season maturity group grown during the monsoon
(kharif) season in All India Coordinated Maize Improvement
Project (AICMIP) trials from 1991 to 2012 in four agroclimatic
zones of the country. The monthly fluctuations in
rainfall during maize cropping season are high in all the
zones during maize crop season and the trend was
significantly increasing in the month of August in Zone V.
The seasonal rainfall decreased during the month of
October in all the Zones. The yield performance of best test
entry was at par or higher than the best check with
significant and strong correlation with each other and with
trial mean. There was increasing trend for maize yields from
1991 to 2012 in all the zones. The new maize hybrids from
AICMIP are superior even under the changing climatic
conditions in different agro-climatic zones, however, there
was a stabilization of the zonal yields (pooled over states
within agro-climatic zones) of maize around year 2002 for 7
to 12 years in different zones of the country. In spite of
high fluctuations in rainfall, there was continuous
improvement in the new genotypes developed at AICMIP
especially in past two decades. Thus, AICMIP had an
important contribution in overall increase in zonal yields of
the country even though the differential impact in different
zones. The impact of new hybrids in zonal or state
productivity and production took less time for Zone II and
Zone III and this impact lasted for more years in Zone II
than Zone III.

Keywords: Advance Evaluation Trials, climate change, Mann-Kendall test, regression, trend analysis

Info

Year: 2015
Volume: 75
Issue: 4
Article DOI: 10.5958/0975-6906.2015.00075.9
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906

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