EXPLORING THE ALLOPATHIC EFFECT OF AQUEOUS EXTRACT OF Moringa oleifera LEAF ON YIELD OF MAIZE (Zea mays)

Moringa (Moringa oleifera) is regarded as one of the world's most useful trees, with nearly every aspect of the tree having a significant impact on food, medicine, and industry. Vitamin A and C, iron, calcium, riboflavin, b-carotene, and phenolics are all useful choices in moringa leaves. Moringa is gaining a lot of interest these days since its leaves include cytokinin, antioxidants, macro and micronutrients. Moringa leaf extract is a low-cost, eco sustainable organic technology that boosts the growth of most vegetable crops, such as maize, cabbage, and tomato, as well as field crops like rape and common beans. Moringa extract of leaves can be used by farmers as a biofertilizers. Because the extract contains zeatin, a purine adenine derivative of the plant hormone group cytokinin, the impact of moringa leaf extract is similar to that of synthetic hormones. The experiment was comprised of eight treatments. The experiment was laid out in a Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with 3 replications. Application of Moringa extract sprayed at every 2 weeks after emergence up to tasseling (with seed priming) significantly increased yield components like number of grains cob-1, 100-grain weight, grain weight plant-1significantly as compared to other treatments. The highest grain yield per plant (175g) were obtained from T4 while the lowest grain yield (127.33g), were found in the treatments where no moringa leaf extract was used (T0andT1). From the results it can be concluded that moringa leaf extract can be applied for better yield performance of maize. The length and diameter of cobs, as well as the number of grains cob-1, 100-grain weight, and grain weight plant-1, were considerably changed by different treatments, although the length and diameter of cobs and the number of grains cob-1 remained significantly unaffected.