Assessment of Yield and Yield Attributing Characters of Hybrid Maize using Nutrient Expert® Maize Model in Eastern Terai of Nepal

Indiscriminate use of fertilizer and lack of site specific nutrient management technology is the main cause of low maize productivity in Nepal. Thus, field experiments on farmer's field were conducted on maize to assess the productivity at two sites of Jhapa district viz. Damak and Gauradaha using Nutrient Expert® Maize model from November 2015 to May 2016. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Completely Block Design consisting two treatments viz. NE (Nutrient Expert recommendation) and FFP (Farmer's Fertilizer Practice) with twenty replications. The result revealed significant differences in terms of grain yield, stover yield, biological yield, and yield attributing characters. NE based practices produced higher grain yield (9.22 t ha-1), which was 86.6 percent higher than FFP (4.94 t ha-1). Similarly, higher average cob number m 2 (8.2), average kernel rows cob-1 (14.2), average kernels number row-1 (589.9) and test weight (361.4 g) were recorded in NE based practice. Thus, NE based practice can be adopted for obtaining higher productivity in eastern terai region of Nepal.