AGRONOMIC RESPONSES OF EXTRA EARLY AND EARLY MATURING MAIZE VARIETIES TO POPULATION, AT BENIN CITY IN THE RAINFOREST ZONE OF NIGERIA

INTRODUCTION Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the most important cereal crop grown principally around the world. Maize grain is used for both human consumption and animal feed. It has great utility in agro industry as a source of raw materials for many products. The crop has much higher grain protein content than our staple food like rice (Oyekan et al. 1989). Based on area and production, maize is the third most important cereal crop aer wheat and rice in the world. The yield of maize in Nigeria is very low as compared to other maize producing countries (Nasir 2002). One of the mPost important responsible factors is the non-application of optimal plant population and the fact that maize hybrids dier in their response to plant density (Xue et al. 2002). As maize do not have tillering capacity to adjust to variation in plant stand, optimal plant population for grain production is very important. Agronomic practices such as plant population is known to eect crop environment, which influence yield and yield components. Optimum population levels should be maintained to exploit maximum natural resources, such as nutrient, sunlight, soil moisture and to ensure satisfactory yield (Allard 2000).