FORECAST OF THE POPULATION AND SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT OF MAIZE DUE TO CANOPY ARCHITECTURE AND CROP LOCALIZATION

The plant population and space distribution in maize are important for theinterception of solar radiation, which is very important to the yield. Radiation interceptionis consequence of the latitude, the day of the year, the hour of the day and foliar angle.There was no methodology for estimating the best plant population and space distributionconsidering the canopy architecture, being both obtained through experimentation infield. There was neither methodology for estimating the foliar angle which maximizesthe radiation interception. The purpose of this paper was to propose equations andmethodologies for estimating the plant population and space distribution consideringthe canopy architecture, as well as foliar angles that maximize the interception of the radiation in consequence of the latitude and the day of the year. The methodology describedshould be validated by the comparison of the yield of cultivar with different canopyarchitectures grown in different latitudes and periods of the year.