MAIZE YIELD RECORDED IN RAINFED CONDITIONS OF SOUTHEASTERN ROMANIA AS INFLUENCED BY FERTILIZATION RATES AND HYBRID.

Maize is a staple food worldwide, and the issues of growing it in current drought-oriented scenario of climate change rise challenges in agricultural practices, especially for the rainfed agriculture that is widely extended in Romania. The current paper presents the results of a field research conducted during 2017 and 2018 at Moara Domnească Didactic Farm, located in Southeastern Romania, aiming to highlight the influence of technological factors, as fertilization and hybrid, on maize yield recorded in rainfed conditions. Rainfalls capitalization by the maize crop shows yield increases between 25.2 kg and 37.8 kg grains per mm rainfalls, depending on hybrid and fertilization rates. The highest yield is recorded by the hybrid DKC 5086 (8512,7 kg/ha) at the fertilization level N₈₀P₄₀. Yield growth generated by mineral fertilization recorded an average value for the researched hybrids of 14.1 kg per kg of nitrogen applied and of 9.1 kg per kg of phosphorus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]