COMBINING ABILITY AND KERNEL QUALITY IN WHITE MAIZE (Zea mays L.) INBRED LINES

Abstract

Although plant breeding has been extremely successful at improving the yield of maize, but kernel quality was given less attention, the ability of maize breeders to use existing genetic variation and to identify and manipulate economically important genes will open new avenues for the design of novel variation in grain composition, thus providing the basis for the development of the next generation of specialty in maize and of new products to meet future needs.The experiment was conducted to study combining ability and kernel quality of white maize (Zea mays L.) populations. A half diallel cross comprising of six parental inbred lines were developed and studied for some combining ability and kernel quality to determine the mode of inheritance of kernel quality traits, heritability and the nature of correlation between agronomic and kernel quality traits. The parental materials consisted of six genotypes of white maize inbred lines which were crossed in a partial diallel pattern, which generated 15F1’S crosses. Twenty five entries comprising of 15F1’s, six parents, and four checks were evaluated at two locations (Wudil and Dambatta) during 2024 rainy. The entries were arranged in 5  5 lattice with three replications at each location. The effects for GCA and SCA combined across locations revealed that parents P43SRC9FS100-1-1-8-#1-B1-13-B1-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B and 1368×ICAL224-1×1368-3-1-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B had negative whereas parents 1368× ×4269-1368-7-2-B-B-B-B-B and TZL-COMP3-C2-S2-34-4-1-2-B-B-B-B-B-B-B had positive significant GCA effect respectively, indicating that they are good combiners for such traits. High-parent heterosis hybrid 1368× ×4269-1368-7-2-B-B-B-B-B × 1368×ICAL224-1×1368-3-1-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B had higher in both locations indicating the effectiveness of direct selection. Finally, crosses with high standard heterosis for yield and yield components could be used for developing high yielding maize hybrids in the future maize breeding program