Dependence of maize germination and seedlings growth on pH

Abstract

Maize is the top-produced crop in the world. Its chemical composition makes it suitable for human consumption, animal feed, and industrial uses. The total world production of maize in 2021 was 1210 billion tonnes from cultivating about 205 million ha. However, there are many limiting factors for cultivation, such as soil pH. Acidic soils are present on 30%–40% of the world's arable land, while more than 1 billion hectares are alkaline soils. It is important to choose genotypes of crops tolerant to high or low pH. Therefore, we conducted research in laboratory conditions on the influence of pH values (5, 6, 7, and 8) on seed germination and seedling growth of two maize Serbian hybrids ZP 4708 and ZP 5797. The hybrid ZP 4708 had higher germination energy (GE), shoot length (ShL), shoot fresh weight (ShFW), shoot dry weight (ShDW), germination rate index (GRI), and seedling vigor index (SVI) than hybrid ZP 5797. GE, root length (RL), ShL, root fresh weight (RFW), ShFW, root dry weight (RDW), ShDW, and SVI have the highest values in treatment with optimal pH 7, and lowest in treatment pH 5. However, these parameters did not differ significantly between the treatments pH 6 and pH 7.