ABSTRACT
Effect of transplanting and direct sowing on productive properties and earliness of sweet corn

Teofil Gavric1* and Omer Omerbegovic1
 
Sweet corn (Zea mays L. var. saccharata [Sturtev.] L.H. Bailey) is a thermophilic crop that is sensitive to cold stress and thus may be cultivated by raising seedlings. The aim of this work was to determine the impact of transplanting and direct sowing on the yield and earliness of the sweet corn crop. The treatment protocol used had a combination of two different cultivation technologies (transplanting and direct sowing) and two different sowing periods (8 and 15 May during both growing seasons). The results show that the different cultivation technologies both had significant effects on the productive properties and earliness of sweet corn. The transplanting variants had about 34% more plants per hectare compared with the direct sowing yield. The ear length and mass were higher in crops grown using transplanting (22.2 cm and 278.0 g, respectively) than in crops grown using direct sowing (21.2 cm and 270.3 g, respectively). During the research period, a significantly higher ear yield was noted in the transplanted variants (11.7 t ha-1) compared with those of direct sowing (7.6 t ha-1). The transplanting variants had earlier harvests by 18 and 16 d in the first and second sowing periods, respectively, compared with those of direct sowing.
Keywords: Cultivation technology, direct sowing, sweet corn, transplanting, yield, Zea mays.
1University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Zmaja od Bosne 8, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
*Corresponding author (t.gavric@ppf.unsa.ba).