GRAIN YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS AT MAIZE UNDER DIFFERENT PRECEDING CROPS AND SOIL TILLAGE CONDITIONS

The preceding crop and the soil tillage are among the important crop technology measures with a significant influence upon the yield, respectively upon the yield components which represent those elements participating to the yield formation. The aim of this paper is to present the grain yield and yield components at maize under different technological conditions in the specific growing conditions from South Romania. In this respect, field experiments were performed in the year 2014 in South Romania (44 degrees 29' N latitude and 26 degrees 15' E longitude), under rainfed conditions. Six maize hybrids were studied under two preceding crops, respectively sunflower and maize, and under two soil tillage, respectively ploughing and harrowing. There were determined the grain yield at 14% moisture content (kg.ha(-1)) and the following ear yield components: ear length (cm), ear diameter (mm), number of kernels per ear, ear weight (g), kernel weight on ear (g), and weight of thousand seeds (g). The highest values of the grain yield and yield components were registered under maize as preceding crop and ploughing as soil tillage. Among the two preceding crops, maize determined higher values for the grain yield and yield components. Among the two soil tillage conditions, ploughing determined higher values for the grain yield and yield components, except for the weight of thousand seeds.