THE INFLUENCE OF THE HYBRID AND THE SOWING PERIOD ON THE PRODUCTION OF SWEET CORN

Sweet corn has become a niche crop for small and medium-sized farmers in Romania. The large number of hybrids on the market requires a study of their behavior in different agricultural areas. In this regard studied an assortment of sweet corn hybrids: Accentuate F1, Royalty F1, Sweet Thing F1, Golda F1 and Bantam F1 under South-West Romanian pedoclimatic conditions. The crop developed during two different sowing-times: the first one mid April and the second one was in early May. The purpose of this study was to identify corn hybrids with good quantitative and qualitative yield, depending on the sowing season. In this respect, some morphological and productive characteristics, as well as yield quality, were under an analysis. Productive values obtained first sowing-times were higher, for all analyzed characters and in terms of qualitative values variations influenced by both hybrids and sowing time were registered. The best yields were the ones for Accentuate F1 (10.35 t/ha(-1)) and Royalty F1 (9.8. t/ha(-1)). Low yield in the second sowing time is the result of the environmental climatic conditions, as the consequence of temperature increase and a lower atmospheric humidity level.