Correlation and Path Coefficient Analysis of Yield and Yield Components of Quality Protein Maize (Zea mays L.) Hybrids at Jimma, Western Ethiopia

Abstract

Maize is one of the most important staple food crops in many parts of Ethiopia. However, it is not used extensively due to its poor nutritional quality and low productivity. It lacks two essential amino acids, namely, lysine and tryptophan. Knowledge of the interrelationships of grain yield and its various causal (contributory) components is very helpful to improve the efficiency of breeding programs using appropriate selection indices. This article reports the findings of a study conducted to determine the nature of relationships of grain yield and its contributing components and to identify those components with significant effects on yield with the intention of using them as selection criteria using path coefficient analysis (PCA). Therefore, PCA has shown that yield per hectare had a significant and positive phenotypic correlation with plant height, ear height, number of kernels per row, and 100-grain weight. Moreover, PCA had a significant and positive genotypic correlation with days to 50% tasseling, plant height, ear height, and 100-grain weight. The highest direct positive effect on yield per hectare was exhibited by ear height. The findings of this study showed that most genotypes are early maturing and are suitable for areas with short rainy seasons and prone to drought.

Performance evaluation of maize hybrids in inner-plains of Nepal

“…A similar significant positive correlation was observed in maize between grain yield to ear weight and thousand-grain weight [ 12 , 13 , 23 ]. Similarly, non-significant positive correlations were observed between grain yield and other traits: plant height [ 13 , 24 ], the number of kernel per row per year [ 13 ] and negative non-significant association were observed between grain yield and ear height [ 13 ], anthesis and silking date [ 25 ]. Though a significant correlation is not observed between grain yield to anthesis, negative association suggests that genotypes with higher days to anthesis have less grain yield, and while making a selection, it is preferred to choose a hybrid with shorter days to anthesis.…”

Genetic variability and correlation in maize inbred lines under irrigated and moisture stress condition

“…Chandana et al (2018) Aman et al (2020) andDevasree et al (2020) for plant height. Tassel length and number of tassel branches exhibited non-significant positive correlation with grain yield under irrigated condition, whereas under moisture stress conditions, the number of tassel branches showed a negative correlation with grain yield Chandana et al (2018).…”

Correlation Analysis Between Morphological, Physiological and Yield Traits Under Salinity Stress Condition in Wheat (Triticum Aestivum L.) Genotypes

“…In recent years, several breeders have been widely carried out correlation analysis in various field crops and unveiled the positive association of different yield contributing characters with seed yield, such as in rice (Hasan et al, 2013;, rapeseed (Banglian et al, 2017;Solanki et al, 2017;Rout et al, 2018), sunflower (Gorgieva et al, 2015, maize (Aman et al, 2020), sorghum (Mengesha et al, 2019), millet (Chavan et al, 2019), barley (Hailu et al, 2016) and oat (Surje and De, 2014). In the present study, the correlations result in non-saline soil ( ).…”