Desempenho agronômico de cultivares de Milho com e sem a inoculação de Azospirillum brasilense.

Abstract

Maize plays an important role in the economy and food security of several countries and is highlighted as the main source of carbohydrate. Corn can be consumed in several ways: grains, starch, flour and oil. The products derived from the grains of this cereal have various applications in the food, chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the search for a more sustainable agriculture, bacteria have been sought to make use of bacteria for biological nitrogen fixation. The genus Azospirillum are the bacteria that have obtained better results in corn crop for n fixation of the atmosphere, besides providing results in the promotion of growth and antagonistic in some phytopathogens. In view of the above, the objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance of corn cultivars with grain aptitude on the effect of seed treatment with the bacterium Azospirillum brasilense. The experiment was carried out at the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT), Gurupi Campus in the agricultural year 2018/19, and the sowing in December. An experimental design was used in randomized blocks, with 3 replications, in a 2 x 10 factorial scheme, totaling 20 treatments. The first factor consisted of the use of seeds treated with Azospirillum brasilense and without Azospirillum brasilense. The second factor refers to the ten commercial maize cultivars. The agronomic characteristics evaluated were: number of grains per row, number of rows per ear, plant height, ear height and grain yield. The data were submitted to analysis of variance, after testing the normality of the data by the Shapiro-Wilk test, at 5% significance. Then, the Scott-Knott mean test was used at 5% probability. Statistical analyses were performed using the statistical program SISVAR 5.0. The application of Azospirillum brasilense applied in different maize cultivars was not significant at 5 % probability for any agronomic characteristic analyzed in this experiment, i.e., the interaction was not significant for these factors. Key-words: Zea mays L. Growth-promoting bacteria. Nitrogen fertilization. Nitrogen fixation.