THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT MICROBIAL FERTILIZERS ON THE WEEDINESS OF MAIZE

Abstract

The experiment with low-input technology of maize was conducted at the field "Radmilovac", Faculty of Agriculture Belgrade in 2022 on the luvic chernozem soil type. Cropping system included tillage with a disc harrow at 25-30 cm with the complete previous crop residues incorporation and the pre-sowing tillage with a harrow. The basic fertilization was conducted in autumn with 500 kg ha^-1 NPK (15:15:15). For top dressing in spring, the following microbiological fertilizers were applied: biofertilizer "Slavol" with 5.0 l ha^-1 in two treatments and Eko lame 10 l ha^-1 in three treatments. The top dressing in the control variant was done with nitrogen fertilizer AN at the rate of 60 kg ha^-1 N. The maize (ZP SC 666) cultivar was grown in a six-crop rotation (winter wheat-maize-spring barley+red clover-red clover-soybean-sunflower). The weed community in maize consisted of 12 weed species, with dominating: Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers. (perennial), Solanum nigrum L. and Avena fatua L., (annual species). The obtained results show that the highest number of weeds, weeds per species, fresh and air-dry biomass were recorded in the control treatment. The statistically lowest values for the number of weed plants per species were recorded in the treatment with Eko lame, but for air-dried biomass in the treatment with Slavol. The differences in weediness in the variants with microbiological fertilizers were not statistically significant, while there were statistically very significant differences compared to the control. Application of microbiological fertilizers affected the initial faster growth of maize plants and increased competitiveness against weeds.