Agro-Morphological Characterization and Estimation of Genetic Parameters of Spring Maize Hybrids in the Inner Plains of Far-West Nepal

Abstract

Heat resilient maize hybrids are an important input in maize cultivated area coupled with high temperature during the flowering period, with a specific focus on the Terai region of Nepal. The research was conducted in the Dhangadhi district from April 2020 to August 2020 in an alpha-lattice design with 26 genotypes and two replications. Analysis of variance suggests that genotypes were significantly different for all traits except plant height and plant population. The phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all traits. High PCV and GCV values were found in the anthesis silking interval, ear aspect and grain yield and low values in the anthesis days and silking days. Highly heritable traits were days to 50% tasseling (0.74), days to 50% silking (0.74), ear aspect (0.69), number of rows per cob (0.84), number of grains per row (0.61), cob diameter (0.87), and cob length (0.86). Genetic advance ranged from the lowest in plant height to the highest in anthesis silking interval. Correlation studies revealed that grain yield showed a negative and significant correlation with reproductive traits, while a positive and significant correlation between ear height and number of ears per hectare was observed. Cluster analysis grouped 26 genotypes into 5 major clusters, and the intracluster distance ranged from 4034.3 to 34960.3. Thus, traits having high variation can be used as selection indices for indirect selection for the improvement of maize productivity and suggest genotype like ZH182079, ZH1767, and KH15486 with high yield for commercialization and distribution to farmers.

Agromorphological Characterization of Maize Hybrids and Estimation of Genetic Parameters in Mid-Hills of Far-West Nepal

“…Te distance between the cluster centroid revealed that cluster 3 and cluster 5 were farthest (highest distance) and cluster 3 and cluster 4 are closest (lowest) (Tables 7 and 8) which concludes that similarity is higher in the cluster with the lowest average distance than that of higher. A similar fnding was reported by [32].…”

“…Te genotype ZH 19782 showed higher grain yield followed by multinational hybrid DKC9108, ZH19961, ZH 19940, and ZH 191965; lower grain yield was reported in genotype ZH 192252 (Table 5). Grain yield is the primary economic trait for improvement in breeding programs as they are the one dependent to yield governing traits and cause direct infuence on the productivity and proftability of farmers [32]. Several authors [16,18,24] reported that grain yield difered signifcantly in hybrid maize which provides an ample space for the selection of genotypes based on their performance.…”

“…Cluster Analysis. All the genotypes were clustered using phenological, plant architectural, quantitative, and yield and yield-attributing traits [32]. Te dendrogram revealed that among 26 tested genotypes 25 were at about 50% similarity in clustering and genotype ZH192030 was found singular among the remaining 25 genotypes.…”

“…Cluster 5 consisted of only one genotype, namely, ZH192030, and is individualized by the highest grain yield, ear position, Plant population, number of kernels per row, and number of rows per cob. Te main reason for clustering genotypes is to classify the genotype based on its complexity to traits such that selection is more efective [32].…”

RETRACTED: Variability among maize (Zea mays L.) inbred lines for agro- morphological traits

“…According to Oyekunle et al (2015), cluster analysis is a technique that helps to identify the homogenous variables at various levels of similarity in the form of a dendrogram. In order to make selection more successful, genotypes are grouped according to how complicated they are with regard to traits (Bista et al 2022).…”