T HE use of local maize is still in high demand by farmers in Indonesia. The development of local maize needs to be discovered through a morphological approach. This study was to obtain seed characteristics and similarities of local maize from North Sumatra. Local maize accession seeds were taken by four districts/cities (Binjai, Serdang Bedagai, Deli Serdang, and Mandailing Natal) from North Sumatra, Indonesia from July to September 2022. A hybrid variety of maize was selected for comparison. Seed characteristics were measured in each accession with four replications. A descriptive-analytic method was selected in this study and data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and followed by Tukey at P<0.05. Correlation analysis, similarity matrix, hierarchical cluster, and constellation plot were constructed in this study. The results showed that SB-1; DS-3; SB-4; and SB-2 accessions had higher seed characteristics than other accessions. The SB-5 accession had the nearest neighbors (0.743) and two accessions (BI-1; DS-2) were classified into one cluster with a hybrid variety. This finding indicates that several local maize accessions are nearest to the hybrid characteristics. A novelty of this study informed that local maize had an opportunity to be used in the fields.

I N LOWLAND rice areas, the presence of barnyardgrass weed (Echinochloa crusgalli) is disadvantageous to Indonesian farmers and requires an initial assessment and identification of characteristics for management. Therefore, this study aimed to obtain the characteristics and similarities of barnyardgrass accessions from lowland rice fields based on the morphological characteristics of the seed. A descriptive-analytical method was used to determine the barnyardgrass characteristics of 45 accessions from nine subdistricts in Serdang Bedagai and one accession from Medan City (MDN), Indonesia, as a comparison. This study was conducted from May to August 2022 and the data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA, followed by Tukey's test at P<0.05. The hierarchical cluster and constellation plot were generated using Ward's method. The results showed that 45 accessions of barnyardgrass from lowland rice fields had sizes of upper glume, lower glume, upper lemma, flag leaf length, and flag leaf width ranging from 2.93 to 4.33mm, 1.45 to 1.96mm, 0.03 to 17.10mm, 22.77 to 45.40cm, and 0.53 to 1.13cm, respectively. Among all accessions, only PG4 accession was nearest (1.825) to MDN. Furthermore, there were five clusters with 13 accessions including SB4; PC1; PC5; PG3; PG4; BK1; BK3; BK5; PB1; PB2; TB2; TB1; and TT2, classified in the same cluster as MDN. This information is very important as an initial reference for farmers in the management of barnyardgrass weeds in their lowland rice fields.