Genetic Divergence With and Without Use of Azospirillum Brasilense in Corn Cultivars

Abstract

Campus. The design used was randomized blocks, with ten treatments and three replications, where the treatments are represented by ten maize cultivars. The variables were measured when the plant reached R6 stage. For the study of genetic divergence, the following variables were analyzed: The number of grains per row (NGPF), number of rows per spike (NFE), plant height (AP), the height of the spike (AE), moisture (UMID), grain yield (kg). The Tocher method was used to verify similar groups; for the verification of genetic distance, there was the foundation through the generalized distance of Mahalanobis (D²) and Singh's criterion for quantifying the contribution of the variables evaluated. The characteristics of grain yield and number of grains per row were the ones that most contributed to the genetic divergence for treatments with Azospirillum and without Azospirillum. The crosses between cultivars aiming at promising combinations to obtain strains are BM3051 X CATIVERDE with Azospirillum and BM3051 X CATIVERDE without Azospirillum.