Effect of arbuscular mycorrhizae and on-farm seed priming on emergence characteristics, yield and yield components of maize (Zea mays) at different levels of phosphate fertilizer

To investigate the effect of on-farm seed priming and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in different amounts of phosphate fertilizer on emergence, yield and yield components of a semi-mid maturity corn hybrid (ES-SENSOR), an experiment was conducted at the research station of Agriculture College, Bu-Ali Sina University in 2012 in a factorial randomized complete block design with three replications, where the first factor was priming in two levels including control (non-primed) and priming with water and second factor was arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (control and application of mycorrhizae) and the third factor was phosphate fertilizer application in three levels (non-use, 50 and 100 percent of recommended phosphate fertilizer). Results showed that seed priming increased seedling emergence rate by 15 percents. The highest symbiosis percentage was about 65.47 which was obtained by application of mycorrhizae and 50 percent of phosphate fertilizer recommendation. Also seed priming increased the number of grains per ear. 100 seed weight was also increased significantly by priming and inoculation with mycorrhizae at 50 percent phosphate fertilizer recommendation. In this study, seed priming increased grain yield by 22.32 percent. The highest yield rate of 1249.59 g/m2 was obtained in 50 percent phosphate application and use of mycorrhizal symbiosis. Therefore by application of mycorrhizal fungi in the direction of sustainable agriculture, phosphate fertilizer can be reduced by up to 50%.