Nitrogen use efficiency, yield and some agronomic characteristics of maize under on-farm seed priming and times of nitrogen application

To investigate the effect of on-farm seed priming and different times of nitrogen fertilizer application on maize Sc 704، an experiment was conducted at Agricultural Research Station، Asadabad- Iran، in 2011 as a factorial in randomized complete block design with three replicates. The first factor was on-farm seed priming in 3 levels (prime with tap water، prime with zinc solution and no primed. The second factor was nitrogen application in 5 levels (without nitrogen application، all nitrogen applied at planting time، 2 stages application، 3 stages application and 4 stages application. Results showed that، grain nitrogen content was highest in zinc solution priming and 4 stages nitrogen application (1. 6%). Maximum grain yield was achieved by triple nitrogen stages application and zinc solution priming combination (10796 kg/ha) that increased about 77% to no-primed and no-nitrogen treatment. In this experiment، seed priming and splitting of nitrogen application time caused decrease in the harvest index. Priming increased agronomic nitrogen efficiency، partial factor productivity of nitrogen and recovery efficiency of grain nitrogen 32. 7، 19. 6، 30% compare with no-primed treat respectively and triple stages nitrogen application increased these indexes 117. 6، 23. 6، 450% respectively in compare with one stage application of nitrogen fertilizer.