Claim · model-written summary
Omitting starter fertilizer increased grain yield in three of four environments, especially among landrace line testcrosses.
- Material
- landrace line testcrossese0
- Treatment
- omission of the starter fertilizatione1
- Outcome
- grain yielde0
- Direction
- increasede0
- Qualifier
- three out of four environmentse0
Zea maysNot reportedComparator
Verbatim
e0“grain yield increased in three out of four environments, an effect that was especially noticeable in the landrace line testcrosses”
e1“The omission of the starter fertilization led to a decrease in early developmental traits”
t0“maize”
Title
Wanda M. Haller; Sandra Roller; Tobias A. Schrag; et al. Crop Science 2025. doi:10.1002/csc2.70215
Other claims from this paper (8)
- Intervention effect Omitting starter fertilizer reduced early plant height and biomass in all four environments.
- Mechanism The authors suggest that better coping with later environmental stress may explain the yield increase.
- Observation Substantial genetic variation exists in response to fertilizer levels for breeding.
- Observation Some landrace testcrosses performed in the range of Flint elite testcrosses.
- Association Additive genetic effects were the main contributor to early developmental traits under both fertilization treatments.
- Association Additive genetic effects were the main contributor to grain yield under both fertilization treatments.
- Recommendation The authors suggest landraces as genetic variation for breeding reduced phosphate fertilizer input.
- Recommendation The authors recommend breeding for nutrient acquisition together with tolerance to seasonal climate variation.