Abstract

BLANCO, Yaisys; AFIFI, Maha  and  SWANTON, Clarence J. The effect of light quality on maize: a tool for weed plants management. cultrop [online]. 2015, vol.36, n.2, pp. 62-71. ISSN 1819-4087.

Light signals such as the red to far-red ratio (R/FR) reflected from stem and leaf surfaces of neighboring weeds can trigger a shade avoidance response in maize seedlings, resulting in morphological changes. Two different experiments were conducted under conditions of non-limiting resources with the objective to determine the effect of neighboring weeds competition for light in corn plants in early stages of development. In the first experiment; we used Turface^® as soil for planting corn seeds, it consisted in two treatments (weedy –free and weedy). Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L) was using as a model weed species, in all parameters studied, a decrease was observed in the experiment with weed after 48 h of planting except stem length 48 h before this was greater in the weed-free treatments opposite effect occurring after 48h. The second experiment consisted in three treatments with different densities(low, medium and high) with nine, 28 and 81 plant respectively, the effect occurred in the different parameters behaved low density higher, except in the stem large , which was greater in the high density. Where the corn plants had an avoidance reaction by weeds shade, due to light competition, because was the unique limitant factor, inclusively when the plants were high on V4 stage. This change in growth may help explain the importance of early-season weed control in corn

Keywords : Zea mays; radiation; interespecific competition; Lolium perenne.

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