Investigation of Drought Stress Indices in Corn Surface Water Deficit

In order to study and evaluate the drought stress indices in surface irrigation by furrow method on grain yield, the yield components and water use efficiency, an experiment was conducted at Behbahan Agricultural Research Station in 2014-16. The experiment was conducted as a split plot in a randomized complete block design with 4 replications. Irrigation at two levels (irrigation after 100 and 200 mm evaporation from Class A pan, respectively) was evaluated as the main factor and corn cultivar was considered at 6 levels as the sub-factor. Comparison of the  mean water use efficiency in irrigation and cultivar interactions showed 100 mm evaporation from Class A pan and cultivars V4 (PH1), V5 (PH3) and V2 (SC Mobin) were ranked the first and foremost, respectively, with the  yields of 1.353, 1.299 and 1.296 kg of corn per kg of water consumed, respectively. The mean water consumed in 2014 of the experiment in 100 and 200 mm evaporation from Class A pan was 521.2 and 462.4 mm, respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient results  also showed that with increasing the  yield components, such as the  number of grains per row and number of rows, the  1000-grain weight was  increased due to  the highly significant correlation coefficient of 1000-grain weight with grain yield (r = 0.8776).  Consequently, grain yield was also increased. The highest values of SSI, STI, MP, TOL, GMP HM and YI indices were calculated in V4 (PH1). The higher values of the above indices in cultivar V4 (PH1) than other cultivars caused this treatment to be introduced as the superior one. The decreasing trend of corn yield, which was caused by water deficit stress, increased SSI, STI, MP, TOL, GMP and YI indices, while it decreased corn yield, leading to incremental changes in the YSI indices.