Agronomic traits and chemical composition of single hybrids of sweet corn

Abstract

In Brazil, the greengrocery market of sweet corn has been expanding along the country. In contrast, there have been few agriindustries canning sweet corn (Zea mays) because of the lack of cultivars with agronomic characteristics proper to industrial purposes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the general combining ability (GCA) of seven inbred lines of sweet corn, and the specific combining ability (SCA) of their hybrid combinations based on their agronomic traits, and the chemical composition of the grain. In the growing season 2006/2007, twenty-one single hybrids were evaluated in the Iguatemi Research Station, Maringá County, Northwestern Paraná, in Brazil using a complete randomized block design with four replications. Data were subjected to the analysis of variance and the genotypes were clustered by the Scott-Knott test. We estimated the GCA and SCA effects using the Griffing's method IV with the fixed model for plant height (PH), height of ear (EH), dehusked ears yield (DEY), reducing (RS) and total sugars (TS), starch (ST), proteins (PTN), ether extract (EE) and fibers (FB). The inbred line L4, which was originated from the 'Doce de Cuba', had the best GCA for crop yield and grain quality and therefore should be used in the next hybrid combinations. The hybrids L4xL5 and L3xL7 were the most promising with regard to crop yield and grain quality.

Partial diallel and potential of super sweet corn inbred lines bt 2 to obtain hybrids

“…Among these inbred lines, favorable estimates of GCA were observed in L 3 for TSS; L 1 , L 6 , L 9 , L 7' and L 9' for flowering and height of plants; L 1 , L 6 , L 7' and L 9' for ear height; L 9 , L 1' and L 9 for ear length; L 1 , L 3 , L 6 , L 1' and L 7' for number of grain rows (Table 3). These favorable estimates of GCA highlighted higher accumulation of favorable alleles for these traits (Cruz et al, 2004;Kwiatkowski et al, 2011). In their study on diallels of super sweet corn inbred lines, Elayaraja et al (2014) and Suzukawa et al (2018) highlighted that it is difficult to obtain inbred lines with good general combining ability for productivity and total soluble solids, this trend being observed in this study, with an only exception of L 3 inbred line.…”

“…The trials showed adequate experimental accuracy for most evaluated traits, when compared to other experiments with super sweet corn (Kwiatkowski et al, 2011;Santos et al, 2014) (Table 1). The average squares for treatments, hybrids and their unfolding in GCA-I, GCA-II and SCA, for the traits evaluated in two sowing dates, were significant, with exception of "days to flowering" in the second sowing date (Table 1).…”

“…agronomic and genetic evaluations of these inbred lines based on their hybrid combination performance is extremely important (Kashiani et al, 2014). Diallel analysis is used as a tool which provides useful estimates to select more promising lines for synthesis of hybrids and to understand the magnitude of the effects which determine genetic traits (Cruz et al, 2004;Kwiatkowski et al, 2011;Worrajinda et al, 2013).…”

“…Estimates of combining ability of sweet corn inbred lines obtained using diallel analysis have been studied considering different agronomic traits, allowing selecting superior hybrid combinations and understanding additive and non-additive genetic effects when determining these traits (Kwiatkowski et al, 2011;Solomon et al, 2012;Rice & Tracy, 2013;Worrajinda et al, 2013).…”

Genetic diversity assessed by microsatellite markers in sweet corn cultivars

“…Over the last several years, sweet corn production improvements in Brazil have consisted of obtaining hybrids (Kwiatkowski et al, 2011) and assessing diverse germplasm (Almeida et al, 2011;Terra et al, 2011) to form a broad genetic basis for local farmers. Information about genetic diversity in corn is essential to germplasm characterization and utilization (Gerdes and Tracy, 1994;Kashiani et al, 2012;Liu et al, 2003;Nigussie and Saleh, 2007;Revilla et al, 2005;Srdić et al, 2011;Tracy et al, 2000;Yousef and Juvik, 2001), particularly among the sul germplasm from southern Brazil (Amorin et al, 2003;Barbosa-Neto et al, 2005;Bered et al, 2005;Rupp et al, 2009).…”