Increased Plant Population Has Little Effect on Total Ovules per Ear of Maize.

Crowding stress caused by increased plant population reduces the per plant availability of essential resources that plants require in order to sustain a healthy life cycle. As plant population increases the yield per plant decreases which can be partially measured in terms of total kernels per ear. The decrease in total kernels per ear is due to a combination of poor pollination (Edmeades and Daynard, 1979, Hashemi-Dezfouli and Herbert, 1992) and kernel abortion (Sangoi, 2001) that occurs during the reproductive stages. However, does any of this loss occur prior to silking during the vegetative stages? Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to document if increased plant population had a negative effect on total ovules per ear.