Abstract

Recent developments in small scale agriculture call for minimum soil disturbance in crop production but crop varieties specific to conservation tillage are needed to be used by farmers. A field experiment was conducted at three selected districts of southern nation’s nationalities and people’s region during 2017and 2018 cropping seasons to evaluate the growth and grain yield response of maize varieties to conservation tillage (minimum soil disturbance, residue retention, and herbicide application). The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design consisting of five varieties (016K-SPRH, 016k-SBRH, BH-540, BH-546, and BH-547) within three replications. Pre planting herbicide (roundup) sprayed to control pre emerged weeds. Growth and yield parameters of maize were measured. Combined analysis of variance over 2017 and 2018 across locations revealed that the maize BH-546 and BH-547 had higher grain yield (5.2 and 5.0 t ha-1), but not significantly higher than the BH 540 (4.9 t ha-1). Although the varieties 016K-SPRB and 016k-SBRH gave lower yield than the hybrids, their performance in growth across locations over years was attractive. The highest plant height (208cm), ear height (108cm) with statistically similar above ground biomass of the varieties to that of the hybrids indicated the potential of materials for further research. Moreover, these varieties performed significantly adaptive and meaningful growth and yield indicating conservation tillage cannot affect the performance of maize growth and yield across locations over years.