Evaluation of Drought Stress on Irrigation Efficiency, Yield and Yield Components in New Maize Hybrids

Maize is one of the most important cereals which its global production is severely affected by drought in many parts of the world. In order to study the effect of drought stress on yield and yield components and irrigation efficiency, an experiment was carried out on 14 maize hybrids in a randomized complete block design with three replications at Seed and Plant Improvement Institute in Karaj, Iran in 2009-2010. The main plots included three irrigation levels; normal irrigation, mild stress and severe stress (irrigation after 70, 100 and 130 mm cumulative evaporation from Class A pan evaporation respectively) and subplots included 14 maize hybrids.Two years analysis showed that effect of year and its interactions with irrigation regimes, were significant (P? 0.01) on most of the traits. Using the results of current experiments, hybrid K74/2-2-1-2- 1-1-1-1×K3545/6 had more tolerance to drought stress condition.