Use of biostimulants on the growth of Zea mays L plants.

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of commercial products, biostimulants, on the initial development of maize seedlings of the cultivar BRS 1055, regarding the indicators of the phenological cycle quality.. A completely randomized blocks experimental design in a factorial scheme was used with three biostimulants and five sampling periods, with four replications. The indicators of the phenological cycle quality assessed were plant height, stem diameter, leaf area, leaf dry mass, stem dry mass and root dry weight. The treatment T6 (BU-RG + BU-VG) showed the highest growth rate for plant height (1.84 cm day-1). The treatments T5 (BU-EC + BU-VG) and T6 (BU-RG + BU-VG) showed the highest growth rate of stem diameter (0.25 cm day-1) and leaf area (45.76 cm2 day-1), respectively. The treatment T2 (BU-RG) presented the highest growth rate for leaf dry mass (0.15 g day-1). The treatments T2 (BU-RG), T4 (BU-VG) and T6 (BU-RG + BU-VG) showed greater stem dry mass (0.10 g day-1); and T4 (BU-VG) and T6 (BU-RG + BU-VG) superior root dry weight (0.17 g day-1). The biostimulants caused positive effects in most of the features but the highest increase was observed for root dry weight. The method of application via seed or leaf favors the increase of the phytotechnical characteristics.