Agronomic behaviour and population densities of inbred lines to form maize hybrids for Mexican tropic

Abstract

Improved seeds are the most important input in corn production, they represent the genetic yield potential and quality production. The objectives of this research were to know the behavior and seed productivity in maize inbred lines, which participate as parents in three-way hybrids. During spring summer season in 2017, there was carried out in Cotaxtla experimental station, INIFAP, in Veracruz, México, a factorial experiment arranged on split plots design distributed in complete blocks at random, with three replications in plots of one row 5 m long and 80 cm wide. There where evaluated 15 elite inbred lines as Small Plot (SP), with densities of 50,000 and 62,500 pl ha-1, as Big Plot (BP). There were registered treatments: Grain yield, days to tassel and silking, plant and ear height, plant and ear aspect and sanity, plant and ear number, lodging, bad husk cover and ear rot. For grain yield, there were found high signifficant differences for density (D) and lines (L) but there was no found statistical signifficance for interaction DxL. The best yield for lines were: LT160, LT173 and LT166, with 5219, 4225 and 4213 kg ha-1, for each one, respectively; Density of 62,500 pl ha-1, registered grain yield of 3154 kg ha-1, 29% more than 50,000 pl ha-1.