Doses of application sulfur foliar fertilization in different stages of development of the corn off season

Abstract

The sulfur has received little attention by the farmers and researchers, mainly in lower investment systems as the off season maize, the crop most sowed after soybean on the Mato Grosso state. The objective of the work was to evaluate in field conditions the agronomic performance and yield by off season maize submitted to the foliar sulfur application, combining different doses and times of supply (stages of corn). A randomized blocks experiment was carried out with four replications, in a factorial scheme 3x4. The treatments consisted of combination of 3 times of sulfur application (stages of corn): V4, V8 and V12, and 4 doses of sulfur: 0, 1000, 1500, 2000 mL ha^-1. The plant height and the number of plants per plot were not affected by the times of sulfur application. Applications on the V8 stage benefited the number of grain rows, number of grains per row, number of grains per ear, a thousand grain mass and grain yield. The doses of sulfur studied here did not influence the most of the characteristics evaluated, except the number of grains per ear, a thousand grain mass and grain yield. The number of grains per ear increased on the proportion of 0.0343 for each 1 mL ha^-1 of increase in the sulfur applied. The behavior of the maize in grain yield, within each time of sulfur application, is linear with the increase of the doses studied here. For a mass of a thousand grains the behavior is linear or quadratic, according to the time of sulfur application considered.