The Effect of Dripper Depth and Zeolite Amount on Corn Yield and Yield Criteria

Use of subsurface drip irrigation and absorbent material such as zeolite increase the moisture retention in soil. So, it has effective effects on crop yield and water use efficiency. In order to evaluate the study of the effect of dripper depth and zeolite amount on corn, this research was conducted in two crop seasons: the first one on March 2016 to June 2016 (T1) and the second one on July 2016 to November 2016 (T2) at research farm station in Shahid Chamran university of Ahvaz as completely randomized block in split sprite block. In this study, two treatments consist of calsic zeolite in three levels (zero: Z0, 5%: Z1, and 10%: Z2) and implementing dripper in three depths (10cm: D1, 20cm: D2, and 30cm: D3) with three replications. The results showed that dripper depth had a significant effect on corn biomass, nitrogen percentage and protein percentage and zeolite amount had a significant effect on corn yield, biomass, nitrogen percentage and protein percentage (P-Value≤0.05). The interaction effect of dripper depth and zeolite amount had a significant effect on leaf area index, nitrogen percentage and protein percentage (P-Value≤0.05). The highest yield and water use productivity were observed in D3Z3, the highest biomass was found in D2Z3 and D3Z3. The interaction of all treatments showed that T2D3Z1, T1D3Z3, and T1D3Z2 had the highest yield and T1D2Z3 and T2D2Z3 had the highest biomass. Treatments D2Z3 had the highest protein percentage and D2Z3 and D3Z2 had the highest nitrogen percentage. Concluding the results, D3Z3 was the best treatment in the case of yield, water use productivity, biomass, and corn quality. So, it is recommended to use depth 30cm to implement the dripper and use 10% of zeolite for cultivating corn in Khuzistan.