Strategies to weed control in maize cultivation can be combined with chemical control to provide reduction of herbicide use. The aim of this work was to evaluate integrated management of plant row reduction, use of corn hybrids with contrasting morphological characteristics and reduction of herbicide levels to weed control. The experiment was carried out in a completely randomized block design with four replications in a 2 x 2 x 5 factorial. The first factor was maize hybrids such as Penta (super-early season maize with flatter vertical leaf angle) and Flash (super-early season maize and more upright vertical leaf angle). The second factor was maize row width (0.45 and 0.90 m) and the third factor was the weed management system (hoeing, no hoeing, and atrazine + foramsulfurom + iodosulfuron at 3000+45+3, 2250+33.8+2.3 and 1500+22.5+1.5 g a.i. ha-1). It was evalued the plant height and vertical leaf of corn plants, the number and dry matter of weeds per area. The vertical leaf angle of corn plants became flatter with the adoption of reduced row spacing, but other characteristics of corn plants were involved in the performance of spacing. The use of the narrow row spacing did not contribute to reducing levels of herbicides, but narrow row spacing benefits ony the weed management and grain yield of hybrid Flash.
Zea mays; population arrangement; chemical control
