Table 2.

Effect of sowing date on maize plant phenotype in the field at the time of leaf harvest for metabolite determination and on mature plants at the time of grain harvest

	Normal sowing	Early sowing
Young plants
Number of ligulated leaves plant−1	4.51 ± 0.29	4.05 ± 0.10*
Total aerial vegetative biomass (g DW plant−1)	1.67 ± 0.48	0.71 ± 0.13*
Mature plants
Final plant aerial biomass (g DW plant−1)	222.3 ± 28.0	230.6 ± 26.0
Final grain biomass (g DW plant−1)	108.3 ± 13.4	114.2 ± 12.9

Mean of 30 hybrid genotypes ± SD, except for NS total aerial vegetative biomass with 29 genotypes

*Statistically significant difference (P < 0.05) between the two conditions according to Wilcoxon rank test