Corn Biomass Production Cultivated with Different Palisadegrass Species and Nitrogen Fertilization in Sidedressing.

Production systems involving corn-palisadegrass intercropping associated with increased input of nitrogen (N) in the soil contribute to raising the productivity and sustainability of farming. The objective of this study was to evaluate the leaf index dry weight (LIDW), SPAD index (SPAD) and corn biomass production (CBP) as function of corn systems production and N fertilization in sidedressing. The experiment was carried out under field conditions in dystroferric Red Nitosol, in Itambé, Paraná, Brazil. Were used three corn systems production (CS, corn sole crop; CBR, corn-B. ruziziensis intercropping; CBB, corn-B. brizantha intercropping), and N applied in V4 stage (0 and 100 kg ha^-1 N), by ammonium nitrate, under experimental design to randomized block, with four replications, totaling 24 plots. At the time of flowering corn plants were evaluated LIDW, SPAD and CBP. After collecting the data field, evaluated all assumptions of analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multiple comparisons of means, were used the Tukey test (P ≤ 0.05). The LIDW and SPAD were only influenced by N fertilization (P < 0.01), with 6 % and 10 % higher than the treatments without N fertilization in sidedressing, respectively. On the other hand, CS obtained CBP smaller value of the order of 8 % and 9% as compared to CBB and CBR, respectively (P <0.05), indicating that the presence of palisadegrass in intercrop no competition or reduction corn biomass production until the time of flowering of culture.