Genetic studies on single cross fodder maize hybrids for enhanced biomass yield and fodder quality in maize Zea mays L

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal crop belongs to the family Poaceae, newlinealso known as grass family. In India, it is being cultivated as a dual purpose crop for newlinegrain as well as fodder. It is being utilized as a fodder crop for silage making besides feed newlineas green forage for animals. Due to larger expansion of dairy, poultry, and corn-based newlineindustries, its demand has been raised in the recent years. Maize is regarded as an ideal newlineforage crop because it grows quickly, produces higher yields, palatable, nutrient-rich, and newlineaids in increasing cattle body weight and milk quality. newlineThe present investigation as started with characterization of 41 fodder maize newlineinbred lines. In order to study the variability and to select the diverse parental lines, the newlineinbreds were evaluated for 16 forage related traits. The analysis of variance for all traits newlinewas observed with existence of significant variation among the inbred lines. The GCV newlineand PCV estimates were observed to be higher in two important traits such as green newlinefodder yield and dry matter yield suggesting the scope for effective selection based on newlinethese traits. Similarly, the heritability and genetic advance for forage yield component newlinetraits such as green fodder yield, dry matter yield, plant height, leaf length, newlineinternodelength were registered to be higher indicating the existence of predominant additive newlineeffect. newlineThe D2 analysis based on Mahalanobis statistics grouped the 41 inbreds into eight newlineclusters including four solitary genotypes as separate groups. Among the studied variables newlinethe GFY and DMY alone contributed 55.60% and 17.93% variation respectively to total newlinegenetic divergence. The genotypes also grouped based on pairwise genetic distance newlinebetween each individuals. The results of this grouping discovered that TNFM 139-1 and newlineN-10-86 were the two genotypes registered greater dissimilarity among the genotypes newlinestudied. Hence, these two are said to be a highly diverse genotypes.