Combining Abilities of Grain Yield and Yield Related Traits in Relation to Drought Tolerance in Temperate Maize Breeding

Abstract

Temperate maize growing regions are increasingly prone to drought stress which is emerging as a primary constraint to maize productivity. Introgression of tropical sources of drought tolerance into temperate maize breeding may contribute to improving the drought tolerance of the relatively narrow temperate germplasm base that is currently in use. In the present study, seven tropical drought tolerant inbred lines and two welladapted commercial temperate inbred lines were crossed in a half-diallel design. The 9 parents, 36 diallel hybrids and 2 commercial checks were tested in well-watered and managed water stressed conditions in Antalya, Turkey in 2013 and 2014. Significant differences were detected between genotypes for number of days to anthesis, anthesis-silking interval, plant height, thousand kernel weight, number of ears per plant, number of kernels per ear and grain yield. Tropical inbreds G1 and G5 were comparable to the adapted temperate commercial inbreds in terms of general combining ability. Specific combining ability analysis revealed that tropical x temperate hybrids had higher values compared to tropical x tropical hybrids. Yield potential of hybrid G5 x G9 in particular, a promising tropical x temperate hybrid, was significantly higher under both well watered and drought conditions. Our results suggest that tropical drought tolerant germplasm is likely to have high utility in temperate maize breeding programs.

Exploring the potential usefulness of U.S. maize expired Plant Variety Protection Act lines for maize breeding in sub‐Saharan Africa

“…Moreover, when means were averaged over testcrosses for each group of lines within a water regime, drought stress reduced grain yield to 70, 71, and 77% for SS lines, NS lines, and tropical lines, respectively. The relative high performance of testcross hybrids with ExPVP lines under drought stress could be explained by high heterosis because of the genetic distances; a similar result was reported by Erdal, Pamukçu, Öztürk, Aydinsakir, and Soylu (2015). The ExPVP lines may also carry favorable alleles for stay‐green, leaf rolling, and plant recovery traits, which increase drought resistance in maize.…”

Combining Ability for Yield of Single-Cross Hybrids Derived from Maize Composites (Zea mays L.)

“…Anderson et al (2012) also suggested that the biggest proportion of genetic variation in corn is due to additive genetic effects. Even for tropical and subtropical maize inbred lines, Erdal et al (2015) concluded that the additive genetic variance is the most important for grain yield. Regarding the contribution of different types of variance on total variance of the yield in the present research, the low variance due to interaction proofed that in the studied inbred lines the contribution of genes with non-additive effect was relatively low compared to the role of additive genetic effects; this situation suggest that for the non-additive effects to increase, the next selection cycles must focus on pairs of plants with more pronounced heterosis for the yield trait.…”

Effect of Irrigation Intervals on Growth, Productivity and Quality of Some Yellow Maize Genotypes

“…On the other hand, T.W.C 352 genotype produced the lowest values for all abovementioned traits especially under severe stress condition (irrigation every 22 days). In this connection, many researchers recorded a wide range of response to water deficit tolerance in maize genotypes (EL-Hosary et al, 2013;Adebayo & Menkir, 2014;Erdal et al, 2015).…”