Summary: ABSTRACT: The increment on plant density in narrow row spacing resulted in a greater absorption of photosynthetic active radiation particularly in tropical environments as in the Cerrado Biome. This review aims to analyze the main factors that affect plant arrangement definition in maize, the changes in plant arrangement recommendation and, the modification in plant traits that favored such changes. The choice of plant arrangement in the field must take into account cultivar, grower objective, input availability, planting date and disponible farmer structure. The association between better crop management and highly productive hybrids favored the increase in plant density and reduction in row spacing. Most of research results showed that grain yield was increased for plant densities higher than 70,000 plants per hectare, indicating that the use of narrow row spacing associated to the presence of shorter plant stature hybrids, favors enhancements in plant density. In general, the results also shows that the grain yield was significantly affected by the interaction between hybrid and plant density in different fields. This indicates that, depending of the hybrid, the reduction of row spacing to 0.45 m is a managing practice that allows an increment in the sowing density.

Publication year: 2007

Types of publication: Booklets

Unit: Embrapa Cerrados

Keywords: Brasil, Densidade de Plantio, Espaçamento, Maize, Milho, Produtividade, Semeadura, Zea Mays, plant density, row spacing