Milho segunda safra consorciado com cultivares de Panicum maximum, no norte de Mato Grosso

Abstract

Brazil plays an important role in world agriculture, as it is the largest producer of soybeans and the second largest producer of corn and faces the challenge of meeting the world demand for food, using the already open areas, without compromising the ecosystem. Many researches have been carried out to develop systems with better use of the areas and diversification of production in a sustainable way. In this sense, the objective was to evaluate the grain yield of corn, in the second crop, intercropped with cultivars of Panicum maximum and to quantify the production of total dry mass, in the North region of Mato Grosso. The experiment was carried out in the 2019/20 crop year in the municipality of Santa Carmem, MT (11º55'45" S, 55º10'20" W and altitude of 435 m). The experimental design used was randomized blocks, with five treatments, being theintercropping of corn with the cultivars of P. maximum: (Corn/zuri grass; Corn/tamani Taman i grass; Corn/massai grass; Corn/ Mombasa grass, and Maize monoculture), with four replications.The following variables were evaluated: initial population of corn plants, final population of corn plants, height of insertion of the first ear, stem diameter, prolificity, length and diameter of ears, number of grains per ear, weight of one hundred grains, grain yield, dry mass of forages and corn and total dry mass. Among the evaluations, the results for mass of one hundred grains, productivity, dry mass of grass and total dry mass in the intercropped treatments evaluated showed no significant difference. In view of the above, corn intercropping with Panicum cultivars did not provide dry mass greater than 50%, in contrast to single corn.