RESPONSES OF SPRING SOWN MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) GENOTYPES TO ASPERGILLUS FLAVUS INOCULATION: GRAIN YIELD AND QUALITY ATTRIBUTES

Maize, the one of the world's most important cereals is susceptible to an opportunistic pathogen, A. flavusproducing aflatoxins, which ultimately causing economic as well as human health risks. The insufficient understandings of maize resistance to the fungus have made the selection of resistant genotypes difficult for scientists and growers. A field trial was conducted to find out the host responses to A. flavus exposure in terms of grain yield and quality of maize during the spring season. Maize cob of fungal inoculated and non-inoculated plants were harvested manually and then dried under shade at room temperature. After drying of maize cob, yield and quality related attributed were investigated. The results revealed that non-inoculated maize plants had cob of greater weight than those of A. flavus inoculated maize plants, despite negligible record of visible symptoms of infection in all maize genotypes. The exposure of plants to A. flavus negatively affected the grains per cob, total grains weight/cob and protein, oil as well as carbohydrate contents of grains. Maize genotype, KSC9663 produced higher value for cob length, diameter as well as weight and grains weight per cob. While, maize genotype, HC-9091 showed the lowest value for cob length, diameter and grains weight per cob. Based on the results of current studies, it can be concluded that A. flavus inoculation may have negative effects on grain yield and quality attributes of maize under climatic conditions that favor the fungus growth without producing visible symptoms of infection.