Effect of water stress on Zea Mays plant grown under the greenhouse

Abstract

Water stress is one of the major abiotic stress factors that can effect on maize (Zea mays L.) plant growth. This study was focused on the effect of water stress on maize growth under greenhouse condition in Perlis, Malaysia. The experiment was conducted in the greenhouse at campus Jejawi Universiti Malaysia Perlis over the duration of 10 weeks from 7 January 2016 to 11 March 2017. The maize was grown under four different level of water stress which is Control (no stress), Treatment 1 (low), Treatment 2 (medium), and Treatment 3(severe). The maize plant was irrigated daily according to their different percentage of total available water (TAW). Control is 100 % of TAW, Treatment 1 is 75 % of TAW, Treatment 2 is 50 % of TAW and Treatment 3 is 25 % of TAW. The main objective in this study is to determine the effect of water stress on maize growth. In control and different water stress condition, the morphological of maize growth also was measured such as height of maize plant, diameter of stem, number of leaves and area of leaves. At the end of this experiment, the responses of growth parameters to the different condition water stress were analyze using ANOVA. The results obtained indicated that for treatment in no stress condition is better compared to others treatment. The result shows the mean height of plant for no stress, mild, medium and severe stress is 141.33 cm, 120.00 cm, 89.33 cm and 56.67 cm respectively. Besides, diameter of stem for each treatment also shows the no stress condition is better. It is proved by the mean diameter of stem for no stress, mild, medium and sever stress is 2.17 cm, 2.13 cm, 2.00 cm, and 1.67 cm respectively. Overall, the growth of maize shows more effective for maize grown under no stress and mild stress condition.