Effect of Planting Depth on Growth Performance of Maize (Zea-Mays) at the Experimental Site of Wollo University, Dessie, Ethiopia

The experiment was conducted at the experimental site of Wollo University with the objective of assessing the effect of different sowing depth on growth performance of Maize plant. There were six treatments which were replicated three times. The experimental was layed out in RCBD (randomized complete design). The treatments consisted of 2cm, 4cm, 6cm, 8cm, 10cm and 12cm sowing depth. Analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of depth of sowing on the growth performance of Maize plant (Percentage of plant emergence at 10 days after sowing, number of plant leaves at 15 days after emergence, plant height at one month after emergence and number of emerged plants after sowing by counting stand plants). Sowing at depth of 6cm produced the tallest plant, highest number of leaves per plant, the plant emerged early with 100% emergence. The deepest sowing depth showed poor performance in the parameters considered. Thus for similar agro ecologies of Kelem meda, it is better to apply 6cm depth of sowing. However, the results of the experiment are only morphological parameters and did not include yield components due to limitation of time to accomplish the experiment. Thus the results will be assured, if similar research is going to be conducted in multi locations across seasons.