MSc

Maize is the third most important cereal crop in India as well as in the world. It has diversified uses as food for human, feed for livestock and raw material in industries. Maize being a C4 plant, is an efficient converter of absorbed nutrients into food. A recent development is the use of maize as vegetable, commonly known as ‘baby corn’. Baby corn is a small, young, unfertilized corn ear harvested within 2-3 days of silk emergence. In Kerala, most of the rice fields are left uncultivated in the third crop season due to shortage of water. Since baby corn is of short duration and is moderately drought tolerant, it can thrive in the summer rice fallows of Kerala. The benefit with baby corn is that even after the harvest of corn, the total herbage can be utilized as fodder.
The experiment was carried out at the Agronomy farm attached to the Department of Agronomy, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara from February to April 2015 to study the suitability of baby corn in summer rice fallows as a dual purpose crop, as vegetable and fodder and to evaluate the performance of different varieties under varied plant density. The treatments included planting of three baby corn varieties viz., G 5414, CO 6 and NSC 1009 B under four different plant densities viz., 60 cm x 15 cm, 50 cm x 15 cm, 40 cm x 15 cm, 30 cm x 15 cm.
The varieties under different plant densities significantly affected the growth and yield characters at 30 and 60 days after sowing (DAS). Plant height increased with increasing plant density. Highest plant height was noted for the closer planting of 40 cm x 15 cm at harvest. Among the varieties, CO 6 gave the tallest plants at harvest. The variety NSC 1009 B had the highest leaf area at 30 DAS for plant spacing of 40 cm x 15 cm, and for 60 cm x 15 cm at 60 DAS. Leaf area index at both stages was highest for the variety NSC 1009 B at 30 cm x 15 cm. The variety NSC 1009 B took least number of days for tasseling, silking and first harvest. The highest number of cobs per plant was produced by the variety G 5414. Cob and corn characteristics such as length, girth and weight were higher for wider planting of 60 cm x 15 cm and 50 cm x 15 cm.
All the three varieties performed similarly in terms of green cob and baby corn yield. However, the highest green fodder yield of 32 t/ha was produced by the variety CO 6. Closer planting of 30 cm x 15 cm resulted in the highest green cob yield (12.48 t/ha), baby corn yield (3.22 t/ha) and green fodder yield (34.09 t/ha).
The treatments significantly influenced the fodder quality parameters such as crude protein, crude fibre and crude fat. All the three parameters were highest for wider planting of 60 cm x 15 cm. Crude fat and crude protein contents were higher in leaf compared to stem, whereas crude fibre content was higher in stem compared to leaf. Nutrient content in crop decreased with increasing plant density. Content and uptake of potassium were higher among the nutrient elements followed by nitrogen. Organic carbon, available N, P and K in soil decreased after the experiment.
The highest B:C ratio of 4.7 was obtained for the variety NSC 1009 B and CO 6 at 30 cm x 15 cm. All the three varieties were suitable for the summer rice fallows of Kerala. However, the varieties NSC 1009 B and CO 6 performed better in fodder yield. Among the four different spacing levels, closer planting of 30 x 15 cm can be adopted to obtain higher green cob, baby corn and green fodder yield.